THE OLD TESTAMENT
IN THE LIGHT OF THE RELIGION OF
BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
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THE OLD TESTAMENT
IN THE LIGHT OF THE
RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
AND ASSYRIA
BY
J. EVANS THOMAS, B.D.
<& ty
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1909
-tfVs.
PREFACE
My object is to give a summary of the recent dis-
coveries which have been made in Babylonia and
Assyria, and to show that the lawgivers, poets, and
prophets of Israel had many religious ideas and ex-
periences which were held in common with the Baby-
lonians and Assyrians. The resemblances and differ-
ences between the Babylonian and Assyrian religious
literature and the Old Testament narratives are
pointed out, and I have endeavoured to show the
relations which existed between the Old Testament
and the religious literature of the Babylonians and
Assyrians.
The quotations which I have given from the Baby-
lonian and Assyrian tablets are, on the whole, com-
paratively short, but I hope that brevity has not done
injustice to the context. My object is to present a
fairly comprehensive idea of the discoveries that have
been made on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates,
and to show that the Old Testament writers were in-
debted to the religious peoples of Babylonia and
Assyria ; and in the last chapter an effort is made to
state the relation which exists between the Babylonian
and Assyrian inscriptions and Biblical criticism.
I am well aware of the limitations of the book, which
is meant to be comprehensive rather than exhaustive ;
and the readers who are desirous of obtaining further
knowledge can turn to more elaborate works on the
subject.
vi PREFACE
A reliable resume of the last five-and-twenty years'
excavation is to be found in Mr. Cormack's book on
Egypt in Asia, which is a plain account of pre-Biblical
Syria and Palestine. The book has a valuable biblio-
graphy at the end.
References are made in footnotes to the authors to
whom I am deeply indebted, and I feel that my in-
debtedness cannot be adequately expressed in terms.
I have had to rely on some of them for the translations,
but have used my own judgment in the choice of
subject-matter for this book.
My desire has been to bring the subject within reach
of the average reader, so as to make it more widely
known, and in that way to advance the cause of truth
and righteousness.
I believe that the religious literature of the Baby-
lonians and Assyrians, which represents the faith and
yearning of the human heart of long, long ago, was
prompted by the Creator of the universe. For " He
hath made of one every nation of men for to dwell
on all the face of the earth, having determined their
appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation,
that they should seek God, if haply they might feel
after Him, and find Him, though He is not far off from
each one of us : for in Him we live, and move, and
have our being" (Acts xvii. 26, 27). Max Muller
said : " We can hear in all religions a groaning of the
spirit, a struggle to conceive the inconceivable, to
utter the unutterable, a longing after the infinite, a
love of God."
I have to acknowledge the valuable help rendered by
the kind friends who assisted me in the preparation of
this book.
JOHN EVANS THOMAS.
East Ham, London,
February, 1909.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
I. THE BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN INSCRIPTIONS - I
II. BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA - - - - IO
III. THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF BABYLONIA AND
ASSYRIA AND THE OLD TESTAMENT - 1 7
IV. CREATION - - - - " -22
V. THE TABLETS OF CREATION - - ' 32
VI. THE CREATION AND FALL OF MAN - - 46
VII. THE SABBATH, THE CHERUBIM, AND THE DEVILS - 55
VIII. THE DELUGE - - - " - 6l
IX. THE CLASSIFYING OF THE NATIONS - 71
X. THE INSCRIPTIONS AND CHRONOLOGY - - 76
XI. THE TOWER OF BABEL - - - 9°
XII. FROM ABRAHAM TO JOSEPH - - "94
XIII. THE KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH - - I04
XIV. THE LAWS OF MOSES IN THE LIGHT OF THE CODE
OF HAMMURABI - - - - - 109
XV. THE TEMPLE AND THE TEMPLES - - - 1 29
XVI. DEVOTIONAL LITERATURE - - - - 141
XVII. THE INSCRIPTIONS AND HIGHER CRITICISM - 1 56
GENERAL INDEX - - - - - 1 67
INDEX TO BIBLICAL PASSAGES - - - 1 74
vii
THE OLD TESTAMENT
IN THE LIGHT OF THE RELIGION OF
BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
CHAPTER I
THE BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN INSCRIPTIONS
Up to fifty or sixty years ago the early history of the
origin of all things was confined almost entirely to the
Old Testament. But an unexpected light has appeared,
which reveals the history of antiquity. It seems as if
Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Phoenicia, Bashan, Moab,
Arabia, and other countries, became weary of concealing
their treasures. For a considerable time the Old Testa-
ment was considered as the source of light, but discoveries
have been made within comparatively recent years that
throw light on the Old Testament itself. We possess
facts unknown to the men of a hundred years ago.
The light we have was hidden from their eyes, and the
Old Testament history is tried in the light of the re-
cently discovered inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria.
How was it discovered ? Where was it found ?
After much labour by intelligent and scholarly men,
i
2 THE DESERTED COUNTRY
old tablets were unearthed, and the inscriptions
which they contained were at last translated, after many
a fruitless effort.
The manner in which the old tablets were entombed
and preserved for thousands of years is most wonderful,
and the way the tombs have given up their dead is
equally marvellous. " The dead shall be raised up " is
a prophecy which has been partly fulfilled. " Facts,"
it is said, " are stubborn things," and in this instance
they are stranger than fiction. At one period Babylonia,
Assyria, and other countries, were adorned with beauti-
ful palaces, ornate temples, and magnificent edifices.
But Fortune did not always smile on the inhabitants.
Time did to the old Babylonians and Assyrians what it
has repeatedly done since. History repeats itself, and
it began early. There was a rise and fall in the history
of the kingdoms. When the land was deserted, with
no people left to take charge of the buildings and keep
them in a good state of repair, the grand edifices fell
into ruins ; the sun, the rain, and the frost ground them
into dust. Nothing remained to all outward appear-
ance but old mounds, clothed with green grass and
beautiful flowers. " Soon the centre of human progress
passed from the Mesopotamian Valley westward to
the regions of Southern Europe. Babylonia and
Assyria were forgotten. Their cities, too, reared upon
platforms of sun-dried bricks, and raised in solid masses
of the same fragile material to no great height, had
THE MOUNDS 3
been ruined by fire and sword, and gradually melted
away under the disintegrating forces of Nature, until
they became huge and shapeless mounds of earth,
without anything to identify them as having been once
the abode of men." 1
The mounds appeared like natural elevations, and
in this manner the interior was preserved from two
destructive agencies — that of ignorant men and the
ravages of the atmosphere. The vivid impression
made by these ruins has been strikingly described by
Layard : " The observer is now at a loss to give any
form to the rude heaps upon which he is gazing.
Those of whose works they are the remains, unlike the
Roman and the Greek, have left no visible traces of
their civilization or of their arts : their influence has
long since passed away. The more he conjectures, the
more vague the results appear. The scene around is
worthy of the ruin he is contemplating ; desolation
meets desolation ; a feeling of awe succeeds to wonder ;
for there is nothing to relieve the mind, to lead to hope,
or to tell of what has gone by. These huge mounds of
Assyria made deeper impression upon me, gave rise
to more serious thought and more earnest reflection,
than the temples of Bablec or the theatres of
Ionia." 2
To excavate the mounds has been a very laborious
1 A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians, by Goodspeed, p. 14.
2 Nineveh and its Remains, vol. i., p. 29.
1—2
4 THE WRITING MATERIAL
work, but the task of translating the inscriptions has
been far more arduous. The writing material was of
various kinds. The letters or characters were incised
upon stone and metal. They appeared on marbles of
palaces, on the smooth surfaces of gems, on plates of
bronze, and on silver images. There have been dis-
covered traces of skins as writing material, and a sub-
stance somewhat similar to the papyrus of ancient
Egypt. But a very fine clay was the material most
extensively used, which was very plentiful in Baby-
lonia ; and clay was generally used in the ancient
Eastern countries. Great care was taken in manufac-
turing the clay, which was cast into various forms,
varying in size. After the clay had been prepared, a
stylus was used to impress the characters. Sometimes
the material was in the shape of cones and of barrel-
shaped cylinders. These tablets were either dried in
the sun or baked in a furnace, and thus the writing
became so permanent that destruction was impossible
unless the tablet was shattered into fragments. This
method became so prevalent that picture-writing,
which was once in vogue, was abandoned.
I must confine myself to the discoveries that throw
light on the Old Testament. Important discoveries
have been made in the land of Canaan that throw a
great deal of direct and indirect light upon the Old
Testament.1 The most valuable treasure unearthed
1 Canaan daprh V Exploration recente, by Father Hugues Vincent.
TEL-EL-AMARNA TABLETS 5
in the land of the Pharaohs has been the Tel-el-Amarna
tablets, which have brought Canaan into clearer light.1
These tablets prove that the language and the letters
of Babylonia were well known to the Canaanites. All
the chiefs of Canaan, and even of Cyprus, availed them-
selves of the Babylonian writing and language, and
wrote on the clay tablets like the Babylonians, and
the Babylonian tongue was the official language of
diplomatic intercourse from the Euphrates to the Nile.
It is evident that the Babylonian culture and litera-
ture influenced Canaan and other countries from
2200 to beyond 1400 B.C. It is very difficult to say to
what extent Babylonia did exercise that influence.
" It has often been said that the inscriptions of the
ancient Sumerians are without much intrinsic value,
that they mainly consist of dull votive formulae, and
that for general interest the best of them cannot be
compared with the later inscriptions of the Semitic
inhabitants of Mesopotamia. This reproach, for which
until recently there was considerable justification, has
been finally removed by the working out of the texts
upon Gudea's cylinders. For picturesque narrative,
for wealth of detail, and for striking similes, it would
be hard to find their superior in Babylonian and
Assyrian literature. They are, in fact, very remark-
able compositions, and in themselves justify the claim
1 Egypt and Western Asia in the Light of Recent Discoveries,
by King and Ha,U.
6 SUMERIAN INFLUENCE
that the Sumerians were possessed of a literature in
the proper sense of the term.
" But that is not their only value, for they give a
vivid picture of ancient Sumerian life, and of the
ideals and aims which actuated the people and their
rulers.
" But perhaps the most interesting conclusions to be
drawn from the texts relate to the influence exerted
by the ancient Sumerians upon Semitic beliefs and
practices. It has, of course, long been recognized that
the later Semitic inhabitants of Babylonia and Assyria
drew most of their culture from the Sumerians, whom
they displaced and absorbed. Their system of writing,
the general structure of their temples, the ritual of their
worship, the majority of their religious compositions,
and many of their gods themselves, are to be traced
to a Sumerian origin ; and much of the information
obtained from the cylinders of Gudea merely confirms
or illustrates the conclusions already deduced from
other sources." x
Our chief purpose in quoting the above passage is to
show how difficult is the task of proving to what degree
one nation has influenced the beliefs and customs of
another, or, in other words, to what extent were the
Canaanites influenced by the Babylonians and As-
syrians. That Canaan, when invaded by the twelve
1 Egypt and Western Asia in the Light of Recent Discoveries^
by King and Hall, p. 215 et seq.
BABYLONIAN INFLUENCE 7
tribes of Israel, was more or less pervaded by
Babylonian culture, is beyond a doubt. " And the
tablets of Tel-el-Amarna (circa 1400 B.C.) are the
clearest evidence how well founded the claim was, and
how profound and penetrating the influence of Baby-
lonia over Palestine was during these ' dark ages.'
From these tablets it appears that Babylonian was the
lingua franca of the leading nations of the East, the
channel of official communication between the peoples
of Palestine, Egypt, etc. The more recent discoveries
of Lachish, Gezer, and Taanach show that Babylonian
was the language commonly used in Palestine, not
merely for official correspondence, but likewise for
private letters, business accounts, and State records.
The evidence of language is not to be lightly ruled out
of court, as it is by Budde and Giesbrecht, for example.
The analogy which the latter adduces is, indeed, an
illuminating illustration to the contrary. The use of
French as the language of diplomacy does not imply
present French domination, but does point to an earlier
period when French influence was widespread. The
history of the eighteenth century completely justifies
the assumption. The Tel-el-Amarna letters bear wit-
ness to a similar prevalence of Babylonian influence
in the old world. The spirit of the people may,
indeed, remain fresh and strong under the dress of
a foreign language ; but the adoption of that dress
involves the acceptance of much besides — foreign
8 HISTORY IMPERFECT
influence also in clothing, manners, customs, art,
etc." 1
It is the Babylonian and Assyrian literature that is
most intimately connected with some of the narratives
in the Old Testament. The history of Babylonia and
Assyria was very defective until quite recently. The
only sources of information at hand were the Old
Testament and the works of Herodotus. Eusebius,
Syncellus, and Diodorus quote from other works, and
are not reliable. The first two were the only original
or direct sources, and as they only refer to political
questions, the history of the Babylonian religion was
very meagre indeed. If all the information contained
in the most ancient sources of the religion of Babylonia
and Assyria were collected together, the result would
be only a mere outline. The inscriptions of ancient
Babylonia and Assyria are of the highest value. In
their light, we can see how the civilization of Greece
and Rome made such a rapid and wonderful progress
in such a short period. And not only that, but the
history of Israel till the return from captivity can be
reconstructed to a remarkable extent in the light of the
tablets.
There is another thing that strikes us very forcibly.
We perceive the same fundamental principles in the
history of ancient Babylonia and Assyria as we witness
1 The Early Traditions of Genesis, by Gordon, pp. 66, 67. See
Bible Side- Lights from the Mount of Gezer, by Macalister.
THE VALUE OF THE DISCOVERIES 9
in modern history. Kepler, as he looked on the
planetary system moving in accordance with the laws
which he had discovered, saw the expressiveness of the
system, and exclaimed : " O God, I read Thy thoughts
after Thee !" He who can see the plans and principles
of God realized in the advancement of the human race
through the centuries may well exclaim : " O God, I
read Thy thoughts after Thee !" " Until far into the
last century the Old Testament formed a world by
itself ; it spoke of times to whose latest limits the age
of classical antiquity only just reaches, and of peoples
of whom there is no mention, or only a passing
reference, among Greek and Roman writers. From
about 550 B.C. onwards the Bible was the only source
for the history of the Nearer East, and, since its range
of vision spreads over the whole of the great quadri-
lateral between the Mediterranean and the Persian
Gulf, from Ararat to Ethiopia, it is full of problems the
solution of which would never, perhaps, have been
successfully achieved. Now, at a stroke, the walls
that have shut off the remoter portion of the Old Testa-
ment scene of action fall, and a cool quickening breeze
from the East, accompanied by a flood of light, breathes
through and illuminates the whole of the time-honoured
Book — all the more intensely because Hebrew antiquity
from beginning to end is closely linked with this same
Babylonia and Assyria." x
1 Babel and Bible, by F. Delitzsch, pp. 6, 7.
CHAPTER II
BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
I will give a very brief outline of the history of Baby-
lonia and Assyria, so that the relation which existed
between the religions of these two countries and Israel
may be better understood. The Babylonians and
the Assyrians were living in the regions of the Eu-
phrates and the Tigris. The Babylonians lived in the
southern part — that is, in the valley of the Euphrates ;
and the Assyrians dwelt in the north-east, in the region
which extended from the Tigris as far as the Kurdish
Mountain. The north-western part of Mesopotamia,
the northern half of the Euphrates, was the seat of
various empires which were one day rivals and the next
day the subjects of Babylonia and Assyria.1
The Babylonians and the Assyrians belonged to the
same branch of the Semitic race. It is true that the
regions where these two peoples lived differed, and so
did the peoples themselves. They differed in habits
and modes of thought, as the districts differed from
each other in natural surroundings. There are common
1 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria^ by Jastrow, p. 26.
10
THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS n
characteristics between them and also marked differ-
ences. The Assyrians were rough and more warlike
than the Babylonians, and when they attained strength
it was used in the consolidation of their military power.
The Babylonians were ambitious to enlarge their
dominion, but presented a more peaceful character
than their neighbours, a virtue which induced them to
cultivate commerce and industrial arts. Though their
characteristics differed in many respects, yet they had
more in common than in distinction.
As we have already stated, the Babylonians were a
branch of the great Semitic race ; and of all the divisions
there remain the Jews and the Arabs, which are the
only important branches left. There was a time when
the Semites were the most influential of all the races
on the face of the earth. Their influence was con-
spicuous in the formation of the Egyptian civilization.
History begins in Babylonia, and not in Assyria,
and the oldest religion is that of Babylonia. It is im-
possible to determine the time when the Babylonians
became finally separated from the Semitic stock, and
settled in the valley of the Euphrates.
It is a debatable question whether there are any
traces of other people having settled beside the Semitic
Babylonians in the earliest history of the valley of the
Euphrates. The probability is that there were other
settlers. These non-Semitic settlers who preceded the
Babylonians in the possession of the valley of the
12 SUMER AND AKKAD
Euphrates were called Sumerians and Akkadians.
The origin of the name is Sumer and Akkad, which are
often found in Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions
in connection with the Kings' titles. As to the precise
locality where they dwelt, it is very uncertain whether
Sumer was in the north and Akkad in the south, or
Akkad in the north and Sumer in the south. Of the
two, the former supposition is the more probable.
It may be that they governed Babylonia at one time.
It is believed that the Semites were nearly as old as
the Sumerians, especially in culture. Perhaps it is
not safe to say more than that the evidences we have
tend to prove the theory that a people of a different
nationality dwelt in the valley of the Euphrates from
the earliest times known to us. Therefore the Semites
who settled in the land did not inhabit the whole of
the country, but there dwelt by their side another
race, or perhaps races, that possessed different char-
acteristics. No positive proof is forthcoming that
Sumer and Akkad were ever employed or understood
in any other sense than geographical terms.
" At every point we come across evidence of the
composite character of Babylonian culture, and the
question of the origin of the latter may, after all,
resolve itself into the proposition that the contact of
the different races gave the intellectual impetus which
is the first condition of a forward movement in civiliza-
tion ; and while it is possible that at one stage the
BEGINNING OF THE RELATION 13
greater share in the movement falls to the non- Semitic
contingent, the Semites soon obtained the intellectual
ascendancy, and so absorbed the non- Semitic elements
as to give the culture resulting from the combination
the homogeneous character it presents on the sur-
face." x
According to the facts available at the present time,
the history of Babylonia goes back to the era about
4000 B.C., when the valley of the Euphrates was divided '
into States, parcelling North and South Babylonia
between them. These States group themselves around
certain cities.
The chronology of the period from about 4000 B.C.
to 2300 B.C. is uncertain. Future discoveries may
bring forth new facts which will throw light on the
period.
It is hazardous to fix a date for the period when the
relation which existed between Babylonia and Assyria
began. It was at one time thought to be about
1500 B.C. Until recently little was known of the early
rulers and governors of Assyria. That the land was
colonized from Babylonia, and was originally ruled as
a dependency of that country, has been well known
for a considerable time; but the early history of the
country, the conditions under which the people lived,
and the state of its capital, have become known within
1 The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Jastrow, p. 34. See
The Religion of the Semites, by W. R. Smith, p. 4 et seo.
14 ASSYRIA INCREASES
very recent times. The history of Assyria as a de-
pendent State or province of Babylon must be pushed
back to a far more remote period than was supposed.
And we should remember that the problem of Assyrian
chronology is, for the earlier periods, far from being
solved.1
It seems that at first the two Powers were friendly,
but the growing strength of Assyria became a menace
to Babylonia. About 1300 B.C. the Assyrian army
attacked the city of Babylon, and the two Powers
fought hard until about 1200 B.C., when Tiglath-
pileser I. (1120-1100 B.C.), one of the most noted Kings
of ancient times, conquered Babylonia. The over-
throw of Babylonia was so complete that it became
subject to the Assyrian Kings. " Babylonia must
decrease, while its rival Assyria increases, until, after
a long and sore struggle, the old land becomes for a
time subject to the younger."2 The whole country
north of Syria and Mesopotamia, from Lake Van to
the Mediterranean, Tiglath-pileser says he made " of
one mouth " — that is, he made to give homage to
himself.
Babylon was the civilizing Power. Assyria was
weak in this ; from its origin to its fall its chief charac-
teristics were energy and love of military power. It
1 Annals of the Kings of Assyria, by Budge and King, p. 1 etseq. ;
Egypt and Western Asia in the Light of Recent Discoveries, by
King and Hall, p. 388 et seq.
2 The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Jastrow, p. 35.
THE HISTORY OF BOTH AS ONE 15
sought to increase its power by constant warfare. The
history of Assyria can be traced back to about
1800 B.C.
The history of Babylonia and Assyria may be
regarded as one from the third period of Baby-
lonian, and the second period of Assyrian history,
from 1100 B.C. till the fall of Assyria, 606 B.C.'
During these five centuries the united Mesopotamian
Empire enjoyed the highest prosperity. Assyria rose
to be an all-embracing Power during this period. The
Hittites were conquered, Phoenicia was overcome, and
so was Israel, while Judah was independent only in
name.
The culture of Babylon went to Assyria. The
Babylonian temples were the models according to
which the Assyrian temples were built. The litera-
ture of the sacred cities of the south that had been
treasured in the archives of the sacred cities of Baby-
lonia were copied by the scribes of Assyria, and stored
in the palaces of the Kings. The capital of Assyria
moved towards the north. During the reign of Ashur-
nasirpal, Calah became the capital, in 880 B.C., instead
of Ashur. And, in the course of time, Calah gave way
to Nineveh, which was the centre of the great Empire
during the reign of Tiglath-pileser II. (800 B.C.). It
was during the reign of Ashurbanipal (668-626 B.C.)
that the height of the Assyrian power was reached.
The King led his mighty army to the banks of the
16 THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION ENDS
Nile, and succeeded in obtaining a direct control over
the affairs of Egypt.
Under Ashurbanipal, Nineveh became the centre.
not only of military power, but of literature as well.
The cuneiform literature of Babylonia is collected for
the benefit of his people.
So far as religion is concerned, it came to an end
when the second Babylonian Empire fell. The history
of Babylonian and Assyrian religion extends from
4000 B.C. till about 550 B.C. And when we deal with
the relation between the religion of Babylonia and
Assyria and the religion of Israel, we must begin with
Babylonia; but to attain the object we have in view,
we shall treat the religions of Babylonia and Assyria
as one.
CHAPTER III
THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF BABYLONIA AND
ASSYRIA AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
The best guide we have to the religious creeds of the
people of antiquity is to be found in their national
literature. The origin of Babylonian literature is
enveloped in darkness. We can state for certain that
it dates prior to the age of Hammurabi, but beyond
that everything is a question of conjecture. Ur,
Sippur, Agade, Eridu, Nippur, Uruk, and, it may
be, Lagash, and later on Babylon, were the great
centres of political and religious thought and activity.
It was in Babylonia literature had its birth. It
sprang up in those cities where commerce saw the
light.
One peculiar characteristic worthy of note about all
the Babylonian literature is its religious nature. In
this the religion of the Hebrew people is very similar.
The legal phrases inscribed on such hard and cold
material as the contract tablets have a religious colour.
It is like the Blue book having a religious atmosphere.
There was a reason for this. The scribes were priests,
17 2
18 THE LITERATURE PRODUCED
and every kind of contract between parties was a re-
ligious agreement. In political, business, and legal
matters an invocation or an appeal to the gods was
involved. What we term secular was religious to the
Babylonians, and even science was clothed in a re-
ligious garb. It was believed that the stars had power
to shape and influence man's destiny. Medicine,
again, was in the hands of the priests. It was a Baby-
lonian belief that disease was caused by a direct pres-
ence in the body of a divine infliction, or that it was
present on account of the influence of some pernicious
spirit hiding there. Magic of various kinds was re-
sorted to as a cure. The Babylonians and the peoples
of antiquity, including the Jews, attributed diseases
to some supernatural agencies ; but we attribute them
to-day to some natural causes, to be cured by natural
means. The result was that the Babylonians, though
somewhat advanced in the knowledge of medicine,
always associated the medicinal remedies with an
appeal to the gods.
The inscriptions show clearly that the historical
literature of the Babylonians was produced by the re-
ligious leaders of the nation, under the command of the
rulers, who were anxious to express their deep sense
of dependence upon the gods of the land ; and this was
made the basis of the authority which the rulers exer-
cised over the people, so that no line of distinction was
drawn between the religious and the secular in the
CLASSIFICATION 19
life of the Babylonians and Assyrians, and the same is
true of the Jews.
What may be termed the religious literature in the
strict sense of the word may be divided into five
classes, according to Professor Jastrow's divisions :
1. The magical texts.
2. The hymns and prayers.
3. Omens and forecasts.
4. The cosmology.
5. Epics and legends.
The first three groups have a practical significance,
while the last two are distinguished more by a dis-
tinctly literary character. The first three groups —
the magical texts, hymns and prayers, omens and fore-
casts— were produced as occasions demanded, and there
was ample reason why they should be written, and
that at an early age. The incantations which had been
effective in securing a control over the spirit would
naturally become popular, and would be kept for the
service of generations yet to come, and these would
naturally be connected with some temple or other.
Rituals grew in this manner.
The rituals of various temples once being fixed, the
impulse to literary composition would still go on in an
age marked by mental activity. The practical pur-
pose would be followed by the love of literary ex-
cellency. The connection with, and attachment to,
2 — 2
20 THE OLD TESTAMENT
particular sacred edifices or certain gods would inspire
earnest and gifted priests to further efforts. This is
clearly seen in the story of Creation, the epics and
legends that form the second half of the religious
productions of Babylonia.
The Religious Literature of the Old Testament. — Some
are still of opinion that we possess in the Book of
Genesis the oldest tradition of the origin of the world,
the creation of man, and the beginning of the human
race. On the other hand, many scholars contend
that the Old Testament contains practically nothing
that is original. According to this view, Israel must
not be regarded as holding a unique position amongst
the nations of the world in that remote age ; nor can
it be affirmed that traditions that resemble those of
Israel were borrowed from the Old Testament ; and
the difference can be accounted for by assuming their
deterioration in the process of being handed down to
the succeeding generations. Politically, Israel did not
stand aloof from her neighbours, but was influenced by
them. Egypt and Babylonia and Assyria influenced
the culture and politics of Israel ; and in the same way
the religious views of the Jewish people were influenced
by Babylonia and Assyria. In the sphere of religion,
as in that of politics, influences came pouring in from
all sides on the people who settled in Palestine. It
did not remain unaffected by the spiritual possessions
of the Canaanites, into whose country it had forced its
ISRAEL INFLUENCED 21
way and established itself. Very lively exchange of
ideas must have occurred amongst the people of
antiquity, and Israel was powerfully affected by them.
It is too late in the day to maintain that the Israelitish
religion had no points of contact with the religious
beliefs of its neighbours, but to define exactly the
nature of the relation is not quite easy.
The narratives in the first chapters of the Book of
Genesis have always played a very prominent part in
the religion of Israel — the story of the Creation of the
world, and the Creation and the Fall of man.
It is within the scope of our task to point out the
elements which are common to the religion of both
Babylonia-Assyria and the Old Testament. It is a
very striking fact that the narrative in the Book of
Genesis resembles the Babylonian tradition.
CHAPTER IV
CREATION
The story of the Creation of the universe is in the Book
of Genesis (i. to ii. 4a). Theologians have taught, and
religious people, have believed, that the above narra-
tive is a true picture of the order of Creation. Though
the religious conception of God creating the world is
very high, still, the story cannot stand the light that
astronomy and geology have shed upon it. The facts
recorded by both sciences are at variance with the
narrative in the Book of Genesis. Astronomy and
geology caused serious doubts in the minds of scholars
as to the accuracy of the supposed facts before archae-
ology entered the field. Archaeological research in
Babylonia and Assyria has brought to light the source
whence the story of Creation sprang.
The progress made in this branch of science was
very insignificant before the year 1835. In that year
Major Henry Rawlinson began to draw copies of three
inscriptions on Mount Behistun, near Rermansha,
Persia.
In 1842 Botta began to dig the mounds of Monsul ;
22
VARIOUS TRADITIONS 23
in 1849 Mr. Henry Layard began to explore in Nineveh,
and while there it dawned upon him that some of the
narratives in the Book of Genesis were brought from
Babylonia. This problem was definitely settled in
1872, when the late Mr. George Smith declared that he
had discovered on the tablets a narrative that would
throw light on the story of the Deluge. In the year
1876 he published in his book entitled Chaldean
Genesis all the inscriptions that had been discovered
and translated. Though the Babylonian story of
Creation is fragmentary, yet it is complete enough to
convince the intelligent and unprejudiced mind that a
very intimate relation existed between the story of
Creation in the Old Testament and the story of Creation
in Babylonian and Assyrian literature.
Fragments of the long epic poem embodied certain
of the conceptions and beliefs current in Babylonia and
Assyria regarding the way in which the universe came
into existence. It is evident that there were other
conceptions and legends concerning the origin of all
things, because there is another story of the Creation
which differs entirely from that of the epic. The epic,
according to Professor Sayce's view, belongs to a late
date.1
Professor Jastrow is very interesting in this connec-
tion : " Various traditions were current in Babylonia
regarding the manner in which the universe came into
1 Lectures on The Religion of the Ancient Babylo?iians, p. 385.
24 TRADITIONS EXPLAINED
existence. The labours of the theologians to systema-
tize these traditions did not succeed in bringing about
their unification. Somewhat like in the Book of
Genesis, where two versions of the Creation story have
been combined by some editor, so portions of what were
clearly two independent versions have been found
among the remains of Babylonian literature. But
whereas in the Old Testament the two versions are
presented in combination so as to form a harmonic
whole, the two Babylonian versions continued to
exist side by side. There is no reason to suppose
that the versions were limited to two ; in fact, a
variant to an important episode in the Creation
story has been discovered which points to a third
version."1
How to explain these different traditions ? The most
probable explanation is that the different traditions
arose in the different religious centres in the valley of
the Euphrates.
There are seven tablets in the Babylonian " Epic of
Creation," but many of them are very fragmentary.
They were discovered in the library of Ashurbanipal
(668-626 b.c.) at Kouyunjik (Nineveh). Of course it
is well known that the library contained many tran-
scripts of earlier texts. There can be no doubt that
the contents of the tablets date back much farther
1 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 407. Introduction to the
Literature of the Old Testament, by Driver, p. 6.
DATE OF THE LEGENDS 25
than 700 B.C. ; Professor Sayce is of opinion that they
are as old as 2200 or 2300 B.C.
The question as to the date of the Creation legends
is a very interesting one. The legends as expressed in
the seven tablets are not exactly the same as they
were in their more primitive form, and so the date
which is assigned to the one cannot be assigned to
the other. The tablets of the Creation story which
were written for the library of Ashurbanipal at Nine-
veh in 700 B.C. were not composed in Assyria in that
century. There are clear traces that the legends had
undergone transformation before this period. Ashur-
banipal was the King of Assyria, and Ashur was the
national god of the country. The Creation legends do
not glorify Ashur, but Marduk, the god of Babylon,
which points out clearly that the scribes made copies of
older tablets of Babylonian origin to be placed in the
library of their master, Ashurbanipal. To assign an
earlier date to the seven tablets is only a matter of
conjecture, but it may be fixed with a certain degree of
probability. The sources at our disposal are only in-
direct evidence, and we can get at an approximate
date by considering the age of Babylonian legends in
general, and of the Creation legends in particular.1
The Creation legends furnish internal evidence
which presupposes a long period — in fact, many cen-
1 The Seven Tablets of Creation, by L. W. King, vol. i.,
pp. lxxii et seq.
26 LEGENDS TRACED BACK
turies — " of tradition, during which the legends,
though derived probably from common originals, were
handed down independently of one another."
The fight between Marduk and Tiamat has been
found upon two limestone slabs in the temple of Ninib
at Nimrud. The temple was erected by Ashurnasirpal
(884-860 B.C.). Here is a direct proof that the legend
existed two hundred years before the erection of
Ashurbanipal's library. And, again, the fight between
Marduk and the monster Tiamat is often found repre-
sented upon cylinder seals, the scene being in varied
treatment, which implies variant forms of the legend,
" and so indirectly furnishes evidence of the early
origin of the legend itself."
" From an examination of the Babylonian historical
inscriptions, which record the setting-up of statues
and the making of temple furniture, we are enabled
to trace back the existence of the Creation legends to
still earlier periods."
" Among the tablets found at Tel-el-Amarna, which
date from the fifteenth century B.C., were fragments of
copies of two Babylonian legends — the one containing
the story of Nergal and Ereshkigal, and the other in-
scribed with a part of the legend of Adapa and the South
Wind. . . . Fragments of legends have also been
recently found in Babylonia which date from the end
of the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon, about
2100 B.C. ; and the resemblance which these documents
SEMITIC LEGENDS 27
bear to certain legends previously known from Assyrian
copies only is not only of a general nature, but extends
even to identity of language. Thus, one of the re-
covered fragments is in part a duplicate of the so-called
' Cuthaean Legend of Creation '; two others contain
phrases found upon the legend of Ea and Atarhasis,
while upon one of them are traces of a new version
of the Deluge story."
Three fragments of Babylonian legends which date
from an earlier period have been discovered — from the
time of the Kings of the Second Dynasty of Ur, before
2200 B.C. " These and a few other fragments show
that early Semitic, as opposed to Sumerian, legends
were in existence, and were carefully preserved and
studied in other cities of Mesopotamia than Babylon,
and at a period before the rise of that city to a position
of importance under the Kings of the First Dynasty."
" The evidence furnished by these recently discovered
tablets with regard to the date of Babylonian legends
in general may be applied to the date of the Creation
legends. While the origin of jnuch of the Creation
legends may be traced to Sumerian sources, it is clear
that the Semitic inhabitants of Mesopotamia at a very
early period produced their own versions of the com-
positions which they borrowed, modifying and aug-
menting them to suit their own legends and beliefs. . . .
It is possible that the division of the poem into seven
sections, inscribed upon separate tablets, took place at a
28 THE GAPS FILLED
later period " (than the First Dynasty, when we may
expect to find copies of the Creation legends corre-
sponding to the legends mentioned above) ; " but be
this as it may, we may conclude, with a considerable
degree of confidence, that the bulk of the poem, as
we know it from late Assyrian and neo-Babylonian
copies, was composed at a period not later than
2000 B.C."1
Only forty lines remain of one tradition ; of the
other six tablets have been found. There is uncer-
tainty as to two pieces, whether they belong to the same
tradition or represent a third tradition, as does a
fragment including a different account of the episode
contained in the fourth tablet of the larger group.
The tablets, containing in all twenty-three fragments,
give a fairly complete description of the Babylonian
story of Creation, and with the assistance of other
tablets containing astronomical, historical, and religious
texts, and with the aid of allusions in classical writers
such as Berossus — a Babylonian priest, who lived about
300 B.C., and compiled a Babylonian history, and
Damascius — another author of antiquity, who lived
a.d. 600 (the historical accuracy of these authors, with
the exception of certain textual corruptions which are
inseparable from works of the kind, have been com-
pletely established by the inscriptions on the tablets).
1 The Seven Tablets of Creation, by L. W. King, vol. i-,
p. lxxix et seq.
THE BABYLONIAN COSMOLOGY 29
So that what is deficient in the tablets can be fairly well
filled in this manner.
The longer tradition is the chief source for the Baby-
lonian story of Creation. The inscriptions are written
in the rhythmical form, and the series is, in fact, a
grand hymn, or a kind of epic poem in honour of
Marduk (Merodach, Jer. i. 2). He was the supreme
god of Babylon. The cosmology, the beginning of
things and the order of Creation, is only secondary,
only incidental ; the chief object is to glorify Marduk,
the head of the Babylonian pantheon. It pictures
the great god of Babylon in severe conflict with the
powers of darkness and chaos — how Marduk subjected
all things under his feet, and succeeded in creating a
world of order and light. The primeval chaos is per-
sonified in Tiamat. Tiamat corresponds with the
Hebrew word tehbm, the " deep " (Gen. i. 2). This
episode describes Marduk's victory over Tiamat, the
primeval water chaos, and the overshadowing power
of Marduk's personality. The glorification of Marduk
being the main theme, implies that Babylon was the
city where the early traditions obtained their literary
expression. Strictly speaking, it is more accurate to
call the poem " The Epic of Marduk " than " The
Creation Epic." To Marduk the heavenly bodies owe
their existence. Order and light had their origin in
him. He takes to himself functions which at one time
belonged to the other gods. Bel and Ea willingly
30 THE " EPIC " IMPERFECT
acknowledge the superiority of Marduk ; Arm and the
other great deities pay homage to him. The early
Babylonian traditions were more or less changed in
the attempt to praise Marduk ; and this colouring was
made by the theologians. Marduk's position was estab-
lished in the popular beliefs before the theologians
began to execute the transformation in the popular
traditions. Marduk was among the latest of the gods
to emerge into prominence, so that the changes wrought
in the epic of Marduk were comparatively late — some
centuries later than Hammurabi, who reigned some-
where between 2400 and 2000 B.C. (according to
L. W. King, 1900 B.C.).
That "The Epic of Creation " is imperfect is accounted
for by the fact that the main purpose of the series is
to glorify Marduk ; and to account for the successive
stages in the Creation of the universe is only secondary.
The general points are touched upon, and nothing more.
To quote Professor Jastrow : " Many details are
omitted which in a cosmological epic, composed for the
specific purpose of setting forth the order of Creation,
would hardly have been wanting. In this respect,
the Babylonian version again resembles the Biblical
account of Creation, which is similarly marked by its
brevity, and it is as significant for its omissions as for
what it contains."1
As to the form in which it is expressed : Each line is
1 The Seven Tablets of Creation, by L. W. King., vol. i., p. 409.
ITS LITERARY FORM 31
composed of two divisions, and, as a rule, four or eight
lines make a stanza. The principle of parallelism is
introduced, though not consistently carried out. So
the literary form of " The Epic of Creation," or " The
Epic of Marduk," evinces great care, not only by its
metrical form, but by its poetic diction as well. The
form of parallelism is a characteristic of both Baby-
lonian and Hebrew poetry.
CHAPTER V
THE TABLETS OF CREATION
We will endeavour to give a summary of the Babylonian
cosmology that throws light on the story of Creation
given in the Book of Genesis, and then we will try to
point out the similarity and the difference between
Babylonian tradition and the Old Testament story,
and, finally, draw our conclusion regarding the relation
between the Babylonian and Biblical accounts of
Creation.
The first tablet, of which only a portion is preserved i1
" When above heaven existed not,
When earth below had yet no being ;
Apsu was there from the first, the source of both (heaven
and earth),
The raging Tiamat the mother of both,
But their waters2 were gathered together in a mass,
1 A translation may be found in The Seven Tablets of Creation,
by L. W. King ; Light from the East, by C. J. Ball ; The Old
Testa?nent in the Light of the Historical Records of Assyria and
Babylonia, by T. G. Pinches ; Religion of Babylonia and Assyria,
by M. Jastrow ; Records of the Past, New Series, by A. H. Sayce ;
Creation, by Zimmern, in the Encyclopcedia Biblica; The Monist,
April and July, 1901.
2 Apsu and Tiamat.
32
THE FIRST TABLET 33
No field was marked off, no soil1 was seen.
When none of the gods was as yet produced,
No name mentioned, no fate determined,
Then were created the gods in their totality :
Lakhmu and Lakhamu were created.
Days went by,2
Anshar and Kishnar were created ;
Many days elapsed,2
Anu [Bel and Ea were created],3
Anshar, and Anu,
And the god Anu,
Ea, whom his fathers, [his] begetters."
Here the portion breaks off. We perceive in this
narrative the Babylonian gods gradually come into
existence. Tiamat, or the Deep, stands for chaos and
disorder. Apsu is associated with Tiamat. Apsu is
the personified great Ocean — the " Deep " that covers
everything. Apsu and Tiamat are really synonymous.
Why should the two be combined ? Professor Jastrow
holds the view that it is the introduction of the theo-
logical doctrine — i.e., the association of the male and
female element in everything connected with activity
or with the life of the universe. Sex plays a very
conspicuous part in life, and so Apsu and Tiamat
were personifications of this principle in the beginning.
To the popular imagination, Tiamat was a huge
monster. Tehom in Hebrew is the same as the Baby-
1 The term may mean " reed " or " marsh."
2 Delitzsch renders a parallel phrase like " periods elapsed."
3 Inserted from Damascius' extract of the work of Berossus on
Babylonia.
3
34 MARDUK AND TIAMAT
Ionian Tiamat (Babylonia tiamtu, tiamat) . Dillman says
of Teh5m that it is formally and substantially the same
as Tiamat.1 We hear some echoes of the same ideas
in the imaginary portions of the Old and New Testa-
ment. Rahab, Leviathan, and the Dragon of apoca-
lyptic visions belong to the same class. " All these
monsters represent a popular attempt to picture the
chaotic condition that prevailed before the great gods
obtained control and established the order of heavenly
and terrestrial phenomena." Assyriologists account
for the belief that water was the origin of the universe
by the fact that the valley of the Euphrates, flooded
by the heavy rains and looking like a sea, suggested
it. At the approach of spring, after the winter rains,
clouds and floods having now disappeared, the dry
land and vegetation appear. The Babylonians believed
that they saw in the Babylonian valley during the
winter and the spring a picture of what must have
taken place in the first spring after a strenuous and
deadly fight between Marduk and the monster Tiamat,
when the created universe came into being.2
The succeeding portion of the first tablet pictures
how Apsu's tranquillity was disturbed when he found
that other gods had entered his domain — a very human
experience, surely ! Being jealous of his rights, Apsu
1 Genesis, English translation, vol. i., p. 58 ; The Religion of
Babylonia and Assyria, by Jastrow, pp. 411, 412.
2 " Creation " in Encyclopedia Biblica, sec. 4.
THE SECOND TABLET 35
persuaded Tiamat to join him in fighting for the
supremacy. But Ea subdued Apsu, and Tiamat was
left to carry on the struggle single-handed, but
succeeded in obtaining a brood of strange and hideous
creatures, who fought on her side in battle.
Apsu declares (line 38) :
" Their way shall be destroyed
And a cry of woe shall be made."
Tiamat says (line 50) :
" Let their way be made hard."
Line 55 et seq., we read :
" Ocean [rejoiced] at her ;J his face became bright :
Evil they plotted against the [great] gods."
The Second Tablet. — The inscriptions contained in
the second tablet are imperfect. There are a few
complete lines and a few fragments. The subsequent
tablets throw light on the second, and so its contents
can be determined to a considerable extent. The first
portion of the second tablet must have contained
Anshar's call to arms against Tiamat, which is first
sent to Anu and Ea. Both refuse. Then Anshar
described Tiamat 's rebellion to Marduk. It is the same
description as the last portion of the first tablet : 2
" Tiamat our mother rebelled against us ;
A band she collected, wrathfully raging."
1 Tiamat. 2 The Monist, by the editor, April, 190 1.
3—2
36 THE THIRD TABLET
The Third Tablet. — Anshar speaks, sends Gaga to
Lakhmu and Lakhamu, to inform them that Tiamat is
preparing for a conflict, and that she has a hideous
brood to fight on her side ; that Anu and Ea had been
invited to fight against them, but had refused. It
proposes a banquet of the gods, at which they shall be
asked to resign their prerogatives in favour of Marduk.
The banquet is held, and succeeds.
The Fourth Tablet. — The fourth tablet is almost
perfect. The 146 lines have been preserved almost
entirely.
Marduk is exalted above the gods. Marduk spoke,
and it was done. To demonstrate Marduk's power,
the gods give him a sign, and he performs a miracle.
A garment is laid down in the midst of the gods.
" Command that the dress disappear !
Then command that the dress return I"
Marduk performs the task successfully.
" As he gave the command the dress disappeared.
He spoke again and the dress was there."
This " sign " reminds us of Jehovah's signs to His
servant Moses as a proof of His power (Exod. iv. 2-8),
and it is to be regarded as indicating that destruction
and creation are in Marduk's power. The gods
rejoice at this unmistakable exhibition of Marduk's
strength. With one voice they frantically exclaim,
" Marduk is King !" The insignia of royalty —
THE BATTLE 37
throne, sceptre, and authority — are conferred upon
him.
" Now go against Tiamat ; cut off her life ;
Let the winds carry her blood to hidden regions." *
Then Marduk equips himself for the battle. The
weapons form a strange variety — bow and quiver,
and the lance and club, the storm and the lightning-
flash. Then Marduk proceeds and captures Tiamat
in a huge net : 2
" Constructs a net wherewith to enclose the life of Tiamat.
The four winds he grasped so that she could not escape.
The south and the north winds, the east and the west winds,
He brought to the net, which was the gift of his father Anu."
To complete the outfit,
" He creates a destructive wind, a storm, a hurricane,
Making of the four winds seven3 destructive and fatal ones ;
Then he let loose the winds he created, the seven ;
To destroy the life of Tiamat, they followed after him."
Marduk, having the most powerful weapon in his
hand, mounts his chariot, which is driven by fiery
steeds. He makes straight for the hostile camp. The
sight of him imparts terror on all sides.
" The lord comes nearer with his eye fixed upon Tiamat,
Piercing with his glance (?) Kingu her consort."
Kingu starts back in alarm. He cannot endure
the majestic halo which surrounds Marduk. Kingu's
1 The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Jastrow, pp. 424,
425.
2 Ibid., p. 426.
3 Adding three to the ordinary winds from the four directions.
38 MARDUK REPROACHING TlAMAT
associates — the monsters — are terrified at their leader's
discomfiture. Tiamat alone does not lose her courage.
Marduk, brandishing his great weapon, addresses
Tiamat. He reproaches her for the hatred she has
shown towards the gods, and fearlessly calls her out
to the combat.
" Stand up ! I and thou, come, let us fight."
Tiamat 's anger at the challenge of Marduk is finely
pictured :
" When Tiamat heard these words,
She acted as possessed, her senses left her :
Tiamat shrieked wild and loud,
Trembling and shaking down to her foundations ;
She pronounced an incantation, uttered her sacred formula."
Marduk is undismayed.
" Then Tiamat and Marduk, chief of the gods, advanced towards
one another ;
They advanced to the contest, drew nigh for fight."
The fight between the two is described vividly, and
then —
" He cleft her like a flat [?] fish into two parts ;
The one half of her he set up, and made a covering for the heaven,
Set a bar before it, stationed a guard,
Commanded them not to let its waters issue forth.
He marched through the heaven, surveyed the regions thereof,
Stood in front of the abyss, the abode of the god Ea.
Then Bel1 measured the structure of the abyss,
A great house, a copy of it, he founded E-sharra ;
The great house E-sharra, which he built as the heaven,
He made Anu, Bel, Ea, to inhabit as their city."
1 A title of Marduk. Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by
Jastrow, p. 428.
THE FIFTH TABLET 39
" It is evident that the canopy of heaven is meant.
Such is the enormous size of Tiamat that one-half of
her body, flattened out so as to serve as a curtain,
is stretched across the heavens to keep the ' upper
waters ' — ' the waters above the firmament,' as the
Book of Genesis puts it — from coming down." The
" abyss " was the immense waters on which the earth
was believed to rest. " E-sharra is a poetical designa-
tion of the earth, and signifies, as Jensen has satis-
factorily shown, ' house of fullness,' or ' home of
fertility.' To the Babylonians the earth was a hollow
hemisphere, similar in appearance to the vault of
heaven, but placed beneath it (with its convex side
upwards), and supported upon the abyss of waters
underneath."1
The Fifth Tablet. — The fifth tablet describes the
creation of the sun and moon, the institution of the
year, with its twelve months. There are only frag-
ments of this tablet.
" He formed a station of the great gods ;
Stars like unto themselves, he fixed the signs of the zodiac ;
He appointed the year, dividing it into seasons ;
The twelve months — three stars for each he stationed,
From the day when the year sets out unto the end thereof.
He founded fast the station of Nibir [Jupiter] to determine their
limits,
That none [of the days] might err, none make a mistake.
The station of Bel and Ea he fixed by his side,
Then opened the great doors [i.e., in heaven] on both sides ;
1 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Jastrow, p. 431.
40 THE SEVENTH TABLET
The barrier he made strong to left and right.
[One line omitted]
He caused the moon god to shine forth, made him overseer of
night ;
He appointed him, a being of night, to determine days."1
In the first lines of the seventh tablet Marduk is
described as the " bestower of planting," the creator of
grain and plants, who caused the green herb to spring
up. The Epic mentioned probably the creation of
vegetation, and it is equally probable that this was the
substance of the lost fragments of the fifth tablet.2
The Sixth Tablet. — The opening and closing lines of
the sixth tablet have been recovered, and it describes
the creation of man.
" When Marduk heard the word of the gods,
His heart prompted him and he devised [a cunning plan].
He opened his mouth, and unto Ea [he spake],
[That which] he had conceived in his heart he imparted [unto him]
1 My blood will I take, and bone will I [fashion].
I will make man, that man may. . . .
I will create man who shall inhabit [the earth ?]
That the service of the gods may be established, and that [their]
shrines [may be built].' "
The Seventh Tablet. — The seventh tablet is a poem
addressed by the gods to Marduk. It describes and
celebrates his deeds and character — he is all-powerful,
beneficent, compassionate, and just. Marduk absorbs
the excellences of all the gods.3
1 Light from the East, by Ball, p. 12.
2 The Seven Tablets of Creation, by King, pp. 1, Ivi, lvii.
3 Ibid., pp. lxiii et sea., lxxxix.
RESEMBLANCES 41
" God of pure life, they called [him] in the third place, the bearer
of purification,
God of favourable wind,1 lord of response2 and of mercy,
Creator of abundance and fullness, granter of blessings,
Who increases the things that were small,
Whose favourable wind we experienced in sore distress,
Thus let them3 speak and glorify and be obedient to him."
The gods recall with gratitude Marduk's triumph over
Tiamat, his humane treatment of Tiamat's associates.
" Mankind is exhorted not to forget Marduk,
Who created mankind out of kindness towards them,
The merciful one, with whom is the power of giving life.
May his deeds remain and never be forgotten
By humanity, created by his hands."4
Marduk is the one who knows the heart of the gods,
" who gathers the gods together," " who rules in
truth and justice."
We come now to the resemblances and the differences
between the Babylonian cosmogony and the story of
Creation in the Old Testament, and the connection
that exists between the Babylonian and Biblical
accounts of Creation.
I.
We will note first of all the resemblances.
The general outline of both is very similar. Both
accounts are short, and what is omitted is as striking
as the contents.
1 A standing phrase for favour in general. 2 To prayer.
3 The gods. * Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 438.
42 DIFFERENCES
A " watery chaos " is presupposed " in the begin-
ning "; above it the darkness, " while the earth was
without form and void."
In both the creation of the universe begins with the
creation of light. The powers of darkness had to be
cleared by the gods of light before the Babylonian god
could begin his work, and the heaven and the earth
came forth.
According to both traditions, a firmament divides
the abyss of waters — the waters above from the waters
beneath. The creation of the heavens and earth
takes place before the appointment of the heavenly
bodies as measures cf time.
And the creation of man is the crowning act of the
creator. " The Epic of Creation," being divided into
seven tablets, suggests a correspondence with the
seven days in the Book of Genesis.
II.
The differences are very striking. The recurring
formulae, as well as the methodical division into days,
each with its particular creative acts, in the Book of
Genesis are not on the tablets. The Babylonian stages
of Creation are not obvious, and they appear to differ
from the order in Genesis ; there the heavenly bodies
seem to have preceded the dry land.
In " The Epic of Creation" there are many gods —
THE STORIES NOT INDEPENDENT 43
polytheism, demons, and monsters — whereas in Genesis
there is but one God.
The mythical features of the Babylonian Epic have
been carefully sifted, and can only be traced in a few
sentences.
In the Epic chaos precedes god ; in Genesis God is
before everything.
The Babylonian gods were either created or pro-
duced— we know not how or when ; it was with gradual
and great effort they succeeded to ascend beyond the
darkness and chaos that encompassed them. In
Genesis God's supremacy is absolute, and His word final.
It may be said that Marduk held a very similar position.
The Babylonian Epic throws light on the moral
aspect of Marduk's character and the moral admoni-
tions to the man who is newly created. Nothing is
said in the Biblical account about the moral character
of God, nor of His will to man.
III.
What is the relation between the Babylonian " Epic
of Creation" and the story of Creation in the first
chapter of the Book of Genesis ? Two stories that
have such striking resemblances in ideas and literary
expressions cannot be quite independent.
One fact is obvious : the great antiquity of " The Epic
of Creation " on the tablets is beyond a doubt ; and it is
44 DIFFERENT VIEWS
equally certain that the story of Creation as recorded
in the Old Testament is of comparatively late date.
So the Babylonian theologians could not have borrowed
from Genesis.
The story in the Book of Genesis is so much better
than the Babylonian tradition, which makes it very
difficult to believe that the latter was elaborated from
the former. It is more than probable that the unique
majesty which is assigned to God in Genesis would be
ascribed to Marduk, if the writer or writers had the
first chapter of Genesis before them.
It has been maintained that the two accounts of
Creation are independent growths from an old tradition
which was current amongst the ancient Semitic
ancestors of both Israelites and Babylonians.
Others, again, have asserted that the account we
have in the Book of Genesis (i. to ii. 4°) is an edition of
the Babylonian " Epic of Creation," with its polytheistic
beliefs excluded. According to the results of Biblical
criticism, the first chapter of Genesis is taken, in all
probability, from the priestly writings, and has been
either composed by the priestly narrator or extracted
by him and edited from the ancient traditions of
which the priestly guild were the recognized keepers.
It is maintained by some that the Priestly Document
in the Hexateuch was composed in Babylon after the
fall of Jerusalem, and that its authors might have had
an access to such tablets as those of " The Epic of
AN EARLY INFLUENCE 45
Creation," or they might have heard some such tradi-
tions from their neighbours.
The objection to the first view is that the two
narratives resemble each other too closely to be wholly
independent ; and to the second, that the social, com-
mercial, and political connections between Israel,
Babylonia, and Assyria were too intimate for many
centuries before the exile to support that view. The
discovery of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets has established
the fact that the influence of Babylonian civilization
had extended over Western Asia, including Syria and
Palestine, before 2000 B.C. The Babylonian was the
language of diplomacy of Western Asia, and at a
later period the States in the valley of the Euphrates
regained their dominion over Palestine. From the
time of Jehu until the captivity the kingdoms of Israel
paid tribute to Babylon. It is almost impossible to
believe that the Babylonian tradition was unknown
to Israel before the exile — the fall of Jerusalem. It is
more reasonable to believe that the Babylonian " Epic
of Creation " was known in Canaan from a very early
age, and was part of the folklore of the country, and
at last of Israel. The religious ideas of Israel modified
and developed the tradition, and Genesis (i. to ii. 4")
retains the form in whch it was expressed during the
exile from the authors of the Priestly Document.1
1 " Myth and Legend in the Sacred Books," in The Old
Testament Theology \ by Schultz, vol. i., p. 24 et seq. ; Genesis, by
W. H. Bennett, p. 71.
CHAPTER VI
THE CREATION AND FALL OF MAN
The account of the Creation and Fall of man is given in
the Book of Genesis )ii. 46 to hi. 24). There is a differ-
ence between the two accounts of the Creation in Genesis,
and it is evident that there were different traditions
amongst the Israelites about the creation of the
universe. In the second account (Gen. ii.) the creation
of man precedes vegetation and animals. A similar
tradition has been discovered on a very ancient tablet
— 3000 to 4000 B.C., according to Hommel.
This story of Creation is in two languages, Sumerian-
Akkadian and Semitic-Babylonian. It does not record
the conflict between Marduk and Tiamat. It is simple
and brief. The development of animal life and the
development of civilization form a prominent part in
this second version. It serves to fill to some extent the
gaps in the first tradition, owing to the imperfect con-
dition of the fifth tablet and the entire loss of the sixth.
It begins with the period when the universe was not
yet in existence, but the period is specified in such
a manner that one has a more definite conception of
this ancient time.
46
ANOTHER TRADITION 47
According to this version, only water exists. Men
and animals have not yet been created ; land and
houses have not come into existence ; no gods have
been created — and because there were no gods, there
were no temples.
There was a disturbance in the sea : Babylon was
built, with its temple, E-sagila. The gods were
created — the Annunaki (the inferior deities). And then
Marduk created men, animals, and the wild creatures
of the desert. The Euphrates and the Tigris came to
their places. There were created the verdure of the field,
grass, marshes, reeds ; the wild cow, with her young ;
the young wild ox ; the ewe, with her young ; the sheep
of the fold ; parks and forests ; and, finally, houses and
cities, and Nippur and Erech, with their temples.1
" The bright house of the gods was not yet built on the bright place ;
No reed grew and no tree was formed,
No brick was laid, not any brick edifice2 reared,
No house erected, no city built,
No city reared [Assyrian made], no animals crept about ;
Nippur was not reared, E-kur3 was not erected ;
Erech was not reared, E-Anna4 not erected ;
The deep5 not formed, Eridu6 not reared ;
The bright house, the house of the gods, not yet constructed as a
dwelling.
The world was all a sea."7
1 Genesis, by Driver, p. 52.
2 Clay being the building material in Babylonia.
3 Bel's temple at Nippur.
* Temple of Ishtar at Erech. 6 Apsu.
6 City sacred to Ea at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
7 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Jastrow, p. 445.
48 CREATING MANKIND
Then we have a somewhat vague picture of dry
land :
" There was a channel within the sea.
At that time Eridu was erected, E-Sagila1 was built,
E-Sagila in the midst of the ' deep ' where the god of the glorious
abode2 dwells."
Professor Jastrow states that " the mention of the
channel appears to imply that the waters were per-
mitted to flow off in a certain direction. The concep-
tion would then be similar to the view expressed in
Genesis, where the dry land appears in consequence of
the waters being ' gathered ' into one place (Gen. i. 9)." 3
With the erection of Eridu, a boundary was placed
for the " deep," and this place extended formed the
dry land.
" Marduk constructed an enclosure around the waters ;
He made dust and heaped it up within the enclosure."
Marduk created mankind :
" Mankind he created."
Aruru is connected with Marduk in the creation of
the human race :
"The goddess Aruru created the seed of men together with him."*
Marduk's creative work is described further :
1 The animals of the field, the living creatures of the field, he created
The Tigris and Euphrates he formed in their places, gave them
good names ;
1 Ea's temple in Eridu. 2 Ea.
3 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria^ p. 447. * Ibid.., p. 448.
ORIGIN OF THE COSMOGONY 49
Soil [?], grass, the marsh, reed, and forest he created ;
The verdure of the field he produced ;
The lands, the marsh, the thicket,
The wild cow with her young, the young wild ox,
The ewe with her young, the sheep of the fold,
Parks and forests,
The goat and wild goat, he brought forth."
Houses are built and cities erected out of clay by
Marduk :
" Houses he erected, cities he built,
Cities he built, dwellings he prepared,
Nippur he built, E-Kur he erected,
Erech he built, E-Anna he erected."
Professor Jastrow sums this up as follows : " The
new points derived from this second version are
(a) the details of the creation of the animal and plant
world, (b) the mention of Aruru as the mother of
mankind, and (c) the inclusion of human culture in the
story of the ' beginning.' " x
Professor Sayce is of opinion that the Babylonian
Cosmogony had its origin in the city of Eridu, a primi-
tive seaport of the country, where land was being
continually formed, because clay, etc., were de-
posited.
Professor Hommel maintains that the chief purpose
is not to give an account of the creation of mankind
and animals, but to give an account of the first forma-
tion of civilization in Babylonia, and to show its
Divine origin.
1 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 450.
4
5o THE CREATION OF MAN
The fragment recognized by Mr. W. L. King contains
a description of the creation of man :
" Marduk on hearing the word of the gods,
His heart urged him, and he made [cunning plans].
He opened his mouth and [said] to the god Ea
[What] he thought out in his heart he communicates
' Let me gather my blood and let me . . . bone,
Let me set up a man, and let the man . . .
Let me make then men dwelling
May the service of the gods be established, and as for them
let . . .
Let me alter the ways of the gods, let me chan[ge their paths]—
As one let them be honoured, as two let them be . . •
Ea answered him, and the word he spake.' "
There remains a fragment of ten imperfect lines,
which probably describes the consent of the other
gods to Marduk's proposal, and was followed, probably,
with a picture of the manner in which it was carried out.1
Eden is a Babylonian word, Edinu, which means
plain or field " applied especially to the great alluvial
plain of Babylonia, watered by the Euphrates and
Tigris." So JEden is not a name for the garden itself,
but for the region in which it lay.2
Onyx is the Hebrew word Shoham, and may be the
Samatu of the Assyrians.3
Two of the rivers named in Genesis, into which the
stream which arose in Eden was parted and became four
1 The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records of
Assyria and Babylonia, by Pinches, pp. 28, 29.
* Ibid, pp. 70-72.
3 Authority and Archaology, p. 19.
THE SERPENT 51
heads, are Babylonian — the Hiddekel (Ass. Idiglat,
the Tigris) and the Perath (Ass. Purat, the Euphrates).
Archaeology has . thrown no light on the other two
rivers mentioned. Dr. Driver says of them : " And
when we endeavour to identify the two remaining
rivers, the Pishon and the Gihon by what we know
of the countries which they are represented as flowing
around, they elude our grasp." The rivers were prob-
ably mistaken for the sea ; if so, it betrays ignorance
of the geography of the country.
There is a picture on an old Babylonian cylinder,
deposited in the British Museum.1 It depicts two
figures seated on either side of a fruit-tree ; both stretch
their hands towards the tree, while behind one of them
a serpent is coiling upwards, which vividly puts us
in mind of the temptation and the fall in Gen. iii.
Its meaning is doubtful, because no inscription accom-
panies it. Delitzsch2 says : " The Bible contains that
beautiful and profound story of the corruption of the
woman by the serpent — again the serpent ? There is
certainly quite a Babylonian ring about it ! Was it,
perhaps, that serpent, the earliest enemy of the gods,
seeking to revenge itself upon the gods of light by
alienating from them their noblest creation ? Or was
it that serpent-god, of whom in one place it is said
1 Chaldean Genesis, by Smith, p. 91 ; Light from the East, by
Ball, p. 25 ; Early Narratives of Genesis, by H. E. Ryle, p. 40.
2 Babel and Bible, p. 55.
4—2
52 LIKE AND UNLIKE
T he destroyed the abode of life ' ? The problem as to
the origin of the Biblical story of the Fall is second to
none in significance, in its bearings on the history of
religion, and, above all, for New Testament theology,
which, as is well known, sets off against the first Adam,
through whom sin and death came into the world, the
second Adam. Perhaps we may be permitted to lift
the veil a little. May we point to an old Babylonian
cylinder-seal ? Here in the middle is the tree with
hanging fruit ; on the right the man, to be recognized
by his horns, the symbol of strength, on the left the
woman, both reaching out their hands to the fruit,
and behind the woman the serpent. Should there not
be a connection between this old Babylonian repre-
sentation and the Biblical story of the Fall ?"
There are striking resemblances and differences
between the second tablet of Creation story and the
account of the Creation and Fall of man in the Book
of Genesis.
Adapa was the first man, according to the Baby-
lonian tradition. The son of Ea was endowed with
wisdom and knowledge. If Adapa was the son of
Ea, why was he not immortal ? Adapa was deprived
of immortality, not by disobedience, but through
obedience to the god Ea.
Adam forfeited immortality through his ambition
to be coequal with God — to know good and evil. He
was sent out of the garden where grew the tree of life.
THE TREE OF LIFE 53
Anu is surprised that Ea should allow Adapa to
appear in a place set apart for the gods.
" Why did Ea permit an impure mortal to see the
interior of heaven and earth ? He made him great
and gave him fame." l
Adapa having possessed the secrets of heaven and
earth, the gods must now admit him to their circle.
The gods offer him food and water of life. Ea tells
him that the food and water of death will be offered
him ; and Adapa refuses to eat and drink. So Ea
prevents mankind gaining immortality.
Adam was sent out of the garden of Eden, according
to the Biblical narrative, for this reason : " And the
Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of
us, to know good and evil : and now lest he put forth
his hand, and take also the tree of life, and eat and
live for ever : Therefore the Lord God sent him forth
from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence
he was taken " (Gen. iii. 22, 23).
While God is as anxious as Ea that man should not
eat of the tree of life, God forewarned Adam, whereas
Ea deceived Adapa, so as to keep him from eating.
The fact that food and drink constitutes eternal life
according to the Babylonian tradition, and that the
same expressions are used in the Old and New Testa-
ment, implies that there is a close connection between
the two. There are other Biblical expressions which
1 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 550.
54 AFTER THE FALL
can be better understood in the light of the inscriptions.
If " water of life " is not actually used in the narrative
in Genesis, that is not an adequate reason for believing
that there is no connection between them.
Adam, after the Fall, made a garment for himself.
Adapa, after acquiring knowledge of the " secrets
of heaven and earth," is commanded by Ea to put
on the garment that is offered him. These two
incidents imply a close connection between the Baby-
lonian tradition and the story in the Book of Genesis.
Another thing is very suggestive. God does not
desire man to gain knowledge (Gen. iii. 5) ; Ea allows
Adapa to know all the secrets in heaven and earth.
And so the weight of evidence points unmistakably
to the conclusion that the story of the Creation and
Fall of man had its origin in Babylonia.
CHAPTER VII
THE SABBATH, THE CHERUBIM, AND THE DEVILS
The Sabbath is probably of Babylonian origin.1 The
Babylonian word Shdbattum means " day of rest of
the heart." Where the same expression is used else-
where it means a day when the gods rested from
their anger, a day for the pacification of a god's wrath.
According to a religious calendar for two months
(Assyrian), the duties for the King are prescribed.
The 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, 28th, are entered as " favour-
able day " or " evil day "; it means that the day may
become either, according to the nature of its observance.
The other six days are regarded as favourable. On
the days mentioned above certain observances must
be strictly kept : " On the 7th day, supplication to
Marduk and Sarpanitum, a favourable day (sc, may
It be). An evil day. The shepherd of many nations
is not to eat meat roasted by the fire, or any food
prepared by the fire. The clothes of his body he is
1 See " Sabbath" in Hastings' B.D.; Encyclopedia Biblica; Reli-
gion of Egypt and Babylonia, by Sayce, pp. 272, 476; Expository
Times, November, 1906 : Statistics of Sabbath-keeping in Babylonia,
by C. H. W. Johns.
55
56 THE BABYLONIAN SABBATH
not to change, fine dress [?] he is not to put on.
Sacrifices he is not to bring, nor is the King to ride in
his chariot. He is not to hold court, nor is the priest
to seek an oracle for him in the holy of holies.1 The
physician is not to be brought to the sick-room.2 The
day is not suitable for invoking curses.3 At night, in
the presence of Marduk and Ishtar, the King is to bring
his gift. Then he is to offer sacrifices, so that his
prayer may be acceptable."
The comparison with the Biblical Sabbath naturally
suggests itself. The choice of the 7th day and the
others rests in both cases upon the lunar calendar.
Another similarity common to both is the Babylonian
" evil day," and the precautions prescribed in the
Pentateuchal codes against kindling fires, against
leaving one's home, against productive labour. These
point, says Professor Jastrow, to the Hebrew Sabbath
as having been at its origin an " inauspicious day,"
on which it was dangerous to show oneself, or to call
the deity's attention to one's existence. Despite the
attempts made to change this day to one of "joy"
(Isa. lviii. 13), the Hebrew Sabbath continued to
retain for a long time, as a trace of its origin, a rather
severe and sombre aspect.4
1 Lit. "place of secrecy." It refers to that portion of the temple
where the gods sat enthroned.
2 That is, of the palace.
3 I.e., upon one's enemies.
* Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 376-378.
THE JEWISH SABBATH 57
There is one difference between the Babylonian and
Jewish observance of the Sabbath. According to the
Hebrew rites, the observance of the Sabbath is binding
upon high and low — everyone. In the Pentateuch
the whole people is holy : among the Babylonians the
King alone is holy ; and the King, by observing these
restrictions, insures the welfare of his people. The
gods cared little for individual piety in Babylonia and
Assyria, but the deities kept a watchful and jealous
eye on their earthly representative.1
Dr. Driver says : " The Sabbath, it is true, assumed
a new character among the Hebrews ; it was divested
of its heathen associations, and made subservient to
ethical and religious ends : but it originated in Baby-
lonia. If, however, this explanation of its origin be
correct, then it is plain that in the Book of Genesis
its sanctity is explained unhistorically, and ante-
dated. Instead of the Sabbath, closing the week,
being sacred, because God rested upon it after six
days' work of Creation, the work of Creation was
distributed among six days, followed by a day
of rest, because the week, ended by the Sabbath,
already existed as an institution, and the writer
wished to adjust artificially the work of Creation to
it. In other words, the week determined the
' days ' of Creation, not the days of Creation the
week."
1 Authority and Archceotogy, p. 18.
58 THE CHERUBIM
The Cherubim.
In the Book of Genesis (iii. 24) we read of Cherubim,
but no description is given of them. A description of
these heavenly beings is given in Ezek. i. In Baby-
lonia the gods employed angels and messengers.
Dr. Delitzsch maintains that the belief in Cherubim
and Seraphim, and guardian angels attending on man,
arose in Babylonia. A Babylonian monarch had at
his disposal a host of messengers, to convey his com-
mands into every country, and it was thought that the
gods were not behind their earthly representatives in
this matter, and that they must have multitudes of
angels or messengers to serve them. The messengers
were quite unique in appearance ; they had the intelli-
gence of man, so were of human form, provided with
wings, to take them through the air with the god's
message to earth. They are likewise provided with
keen eyes and the swift wings of the eagle, as their
chief duty is to guard the approach to the god. They
were endowed with strength — the unconquerable
strength of the bull, or the awe-inspiring majesty of
the lion. The messengers or angels of Babylonia and
Assyria resemble the angels in Ezekiel's vision. Other
representations of angels have been discovered, such
as that from the palace of Ashurnasirpal, which has
a very striking resemblance to our conception of these
DEVILS 59
heavenly beings which are sent to minister (Ps. xci. n ;
Matt. iv. ii, xviii. 10).
This is a letter of consolation to the Queen-mother
from Apia : " Mother of the King, my lady, be con-
soled [?] ! An angel of grace from Bel and Nebo
goes with the King of the lands, my lord."
A message in the writing, addressed to Esarhaddon :
" May the great gods appoint a guardian of health and
life at the side of the King, my lord."
The words of Nabopolassar, the founder of the
Chaldean kingdom : " To the lordship over the land
and people Marduk called me. He sent a tutelary
deity [Cherub] of grace to go at my side ; in every-
thing that I did, he made my work succeed."
Devils.
Dr. Delitzsch is of opinion that the old Babylonian
conception of Tiamat, the primeval enemy of the gods,
is preserved in the idea of Satan which appears several
times in the later and latest books of the Old Testa-
ment, and invariably as man's enemy, and not as
God's (Job i. et seq. ; I Chron. xxi. i ; Zech. iii. i et seq.).
These expressions owe their beginning to the Babylonian
belief in demons, which also recognized an ilu limmu,
or " evil god," and gallu, or " devil." Bas-reliefs
entitled " The Conflict with the Dragon," were dis-
covered on the walls of the Assyrian palaces, which
60 THE CONFLICT WITH THE DRAGON
are centuries older than the opening chapters in the
Book of Genesis, representing the conflict between the
power of light and the power of darkness, which is
resumed with each new day, with every spring as it
begins anew.1
1 See Babel and Bible, pp. 53, 62, 64, 120, 121, 122.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DELUGE
In 1872 a Babylonian story of the Deluge was dis-
covered by George Smith in the library of Ashurbanipal
at Kouyunik. This story has the advantage of being
almost complete. It forms an episode in the Baby-
lonian national Epic, which describes the exploits of
Gilgamesh, the King and hero of Uruk (the Erech of
Gen. x. 10). Berossus had preserved a summary of
the tradition of a flood, and according to his narrative
Kronos warned Xisuthros, the tenth antediluvian King,
that the human race would be destroyed by a flood,
and bade him to build a great ship, where his family
and friends would be safe. It is interesting to note
that the accuracy of Berossus' narrative is confirmed
by the cuneiform inscriptions.
The Chaldean story of the Deluge forms the eleventh
book of the Chaldean Epic of Gilgamesh or Nimrod.
The story originated long before it found expression
in the Epic, and is much older than 2200 B.C., the time
when the Epic took its present form.
The contents of the Babylonian legend are as follows :
Gilgamesh is suffering from a disease. He visits his
61
62 THE LEGEND
ancestor, Parnapishtim, who is noted for his wisdom
and that is why he is called Atrahasis — i.e., the very
wise. Berossus calls him Xisuthros, which would be
in its primal form Hasis-Atra. Gilgamesh experiences
many adventures, and crosses the Waters of Death,
before he succeeds to see Parnapishtim. The old man
has a very youthful appearance, and being asked as
to the reason Parnapishtim narrates the story of the
Flood and how for his godliness his life had been
preserved from destruction at the time of the Flood.
The gods had at one time decided to destroy the city
of Surippak by a flood, but Ea was anxious to preserve
the life of Parnapishtim. The god did not venture to
reveal the secrets of the gods and yet was eager to
warn Parnapishtim of the impending doom. Ea, the
god of wisdom devised wise counsel. He appeared to
Parnapishtim in a dream while asleep in a reed-hut one
night, and, addressing the reed-hut, he spoke as
follows i1
" Reed hut, Reed hut, Wall, Wall,
Reed hut, listen Wall, perceive,
O man of Shurippak, Son of Ubaratulu,
Frame a house, build a ship ;
Forsake your property, Consider your life,
Leave behind all possessions, save your life.
Bring up into the midst of the ship the seed of life of every sort.
As for the ship which thou shalt build,
Let its form be long ;
And its breadth and its height shall be of the same measure.
Upon the deep then launch it."
1 See The Moms/, by the Editor, April, 1901, p. 501.
BUILDING OF THE ARK 63
Parnapishtim comprehends these kindly suggestions
of Ea, and proceeds with his work accordingly. Lest
his fellow-citizens become suspicious, he is advised
to tell them that he was going down to the ocean to
live with Ea because Bel was unfriendly to the deity
of the earth, and he would influence Bel to bestow rich
blessings upon the people.
Parnapishtim was seven days building the ark. It
measured 120 cubits in height and 120 cubits in
breadth, containing six stories each with nine cross
partitions. It was covered with tar inside and out.
When it was completed, Parnapishtim took all his
possessions into the hold — silver and gold, and all kinds
of seeds of living beings, his family, his servants,
animals of the field, and also artificers of all sorts.
The Deluge came, and Parnapishtim entered the
ship. It filled him with alarm. The description is
impressive and forcible.
" This day's break1 Was I afraid of
To see the daylight1 I shuddered ;
I entered the ship, I locked its door ;
To the governor of the ship, To Puzur-Bel, to the sailor,
I confided the ark, Together with all its contents.
As soon as the first Glow of dawn appeared,
Rose from the horizon A black cloud.
Ramman2 was thundering In the midst of it.
Nebo and Marduk Were marching in front —
Ninib came forth, Causing the storm to burst.
1 L. W. King translates " storm " for " day " and " daylight."
8 Rimmon : the storm god.
64 THE FLOOD DESCRIBED
The Anunnaki1 Lifted up the torches,
By their sheen they illuminated the land.
Hadad's dust-whirl Rose to the sky,
And the light of day Was changed into night."
The destructive elements — thunder, lightning, storm,
rain — are uncontrolled. Then the waters rose as in
battle storm upon the people. How splendidly it is
portrayed !
" Not one saw His neighbour any longer.
No longer were recognized The people from heaven above,
The gods become afraid of the deluge,
They fled and rose up to Anu's heaven."
The gods could not stand the awful terrors of the
scene ; they cowered like dogs.
Ishtar, the lady of the gods, having consented to it,
reproached herself, and cried like a woman in travail
at the destruction of mankind. Annunaki shared in
her lamentation :
" Ishtar groans like a woman in throes,
The lofty goddess cries with loud voice,
The world of old has become a mass of clay.
That I should have assented2 to this evil among the gods !
That when I assented to this evil,
I was for the destruction of my own creatures 3
What I created, where is it ?
Like so many fish, it * fills the sea."
The storm appears to have got beyond the control
of the gods, and none but Bel approves of the wide-
spread destruction that has been wrought.5
1 The seven evil spirits of the Nether World.
8 Spoken or ordered. 3 My mankind. 4 Mankind.
5 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Jastrow, p. 502.
THE GODS WEEPING 65
" The gods, together with the Annunaki, wept with her.
The gods, in their depression, sat down to weep,
Pressed their lips together, were overwhelmed with grief [?].
The storm could no longer be quieted.
For six days and nights
Wind rainstorm, hurricane swept along;
When the seventh day arrived the storm began to moderate,
Which had waged a contest like a great host.
The sea quieted down, wind and rainstorm ceased."
Parnapishtim describes the destruction :
" I looked down upon the sea, and made my voice resound,
But all the people had returned1 to earth again
I opened the window, the light fell upon my cheek,
And bowed down, I sat and wept.
Tears flowed over my face,
I looked down upon the world — naught but sea."
But soon the waters began to diminish and the land
began to appear :
"After twelve double hours2 an island appeared,
The ship approached the mountain Nisir."
Nisir means " protection " or " salvation." Beros-
sus has Kordyaic Mountains.
" At this mountain, the mount Nisir, the boat stuck fast."
The boat remains in this position for six days ;
on the seventh day Parnapishtim wished to know
whether the sea had abated enough for him to leave the
ship.
1 Turned to clay.
3 An army's march of fourteen hours.
5
66 LEAVING THE ARK
" When the seventh day came,
I put out a dove and let her go
The dove flew hither and thither;
But there was no resting-place, and she came back.
Then I put out a swallow and let her go ;
The swallow flew hither and thither,
But there was no resting-place, and she came back.
Then I put out a raven and lei her go.
The raven flew, saw the waters decrease,
She approached, cawing and croaking, but returned no more."
Parnapishtim left the ark, and offered a sacrifice of
strong frankincense on the top of the mountain to allure
the gods :
" The gods inhaled the odour,
The gods inhaled the sweet odour,
The gods crowded like flies around the sacrifice."
There was a scene. Ishtar, the lady of the gods,
appeared in their midst and swore that Bel, the
originator of the Deluge, should have no share of the
sacrifice. At the moment Bel enters, and vents his
anger because the planned destruction was not complete
In anger he asks :
" Who is there that has escaped with his life ?
No one was to survive the destruction !"
Ninib tells the fact that Ea effected the rescue of
Parnapishtim :
" Then opened Ea his mouth and spake,
He said in answer to the hero Bel :
' Ho ! Thou wisest of the gods, thou hero !
How foolish wast thou to produce a deluge !
NO DELUGE AGAIN 67
Upon the sinner visit his sin
Upon the vicious visit his vice,
But show long-suffering and do not exterminate,
Have patience and do not destroy all !' "
Ea tells Bel that he might punish sinners in some
other way :
" Instead of bringing on a deluge,
Let lions come and diminish mankind.1
Instead of bringing on a deluge,
Let tigers come and diminish mankind.
Instead of bringing on a deluge,
Let famine come and smite the land.
Instead of bringing on a deluge,
Let pestilence come and waste the land."
Ea confessed that he was the indirect cause of saving
Parnapishtim :
" Not have I revealed the council of the great gods !
To the very wise one I sent dreams, thus he heard of the council
of the gods."
Bel is reconciled, and is willing to render some help
to the saved man.
There are two other texts of the Babylonian Deluge.
The tablets are fragments, and in so far as they have
been understood they seem to agree with the version
found in Ashurbanipal's library, while the third version
is supposed to be written at the time of Ammizaguga,
about 2200 B.C., and it differs materially in details.
What was said of the striking resemblances between
the Babylonian tradition of Creation and the story in
1 Not destroy it entirely.
5—2
68 RESEMBLANCES
Genesis is equally marked in the Babylonian-Assyrian
story of the Flood, which is parallel to that we read
in Gen. vi. to ix. It is impossible to imagine that the
two stories are quite unconnected. As a matter of fact
the cuneiform inscriptions have disclosed a resemblance
which points to no other conclusion than that the two
are dependent.
Parnapishtim is the tenth in descent from the first
man ; Noah is the tenth in descent from Adam.
The cause of the Flood in both stories is ascribed to
the sins of mankind.
The purpose of the Deluge in both narratives was
to punish sin.
The reason why Parnapishtim was saved was his
piety. Noah was preserved for the same reason.
Parnapishtim was forewarned of what was to take
place. Noah, too, had a vision of what was to happen.
Parnapishtim was instructed to build an ark, and re-
ceived the plans and measurements. Noah was com-
manded to build an ark, and plans and measurements
were given to him.
The seed of life of all kinds went with Parnapishtim
into the ark. The same went with Noah.
The waters covered all the high mountains, and it is
asserted that everything living was destroyed except
the things that had found shelter in the ark. The
same facts are narrated in both stories.
Parnapishtim sent forth three birds — the swallow, the
THE ANTIQUITY OF THE LEGEND 69
dove, and the raven — to find out if the Deluge had
subsided from the earth. The dove turned back to
the ark, the raven flew away. The dove is mentioned
twice in the Book of Genesis.
After the Deluge had subsided Parnapishtim offered
a sacrifice on the top of the mountain ; so did Noah.
Bel blessed Parnapishtim, and promised that he
would never again destroy the world by a flood. God
made the same covenant with Noah.
Ishtar uplifted the rainbow in the firmament, which
an ancient Babylonian hymn calls " the bow of the
Deluge." God made a covenant with Noah, and
placed the bow in the cloud.
Dr. G. A. Smith says x " that the Babylonian stories
were probably in existence at a very early date — about
3000 B.C. It throws no light upon the date of the
story in Genesis. We are ignorant of the time at which
the Hebrews received these stories ; while in their
Biblical form they exhibit so many differences from the
Babylonian as to make it probable that the materials
were used by the writers of the Pentateuchal docu-
ments only after long tradition within a Hebrew
atmosphere."
It is evident that the account of the Deluge in the
Book of Genesis cannot be the original. The Baby-
lonian-Assyrian version is much older. Its date must
1 Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old Testament,
pp. 61, 62.
70 THE BIBLICAL STORY
be fixed in the remote past when Israel did not exist.
It would be a great error to assert that the Biblical
narrative of the Flood is only a copy of the tradition
discovered on the tablets. The Israelitish spirit is
breathed into the Israelitish tradition. Religious
thought, like genius, is not self-sustaining, not self-fed.
Genius, to become full-grown, must borrow from the
sources of the past and present. Genius, like Socrates,
is a citizen of the world. Shakespeare had to drink
from many a well. And Wordsworth, Milton, and
Tennyson went to green pastures and lay down by the
still waters. Their genius needed light and stimulus
which could only be derived from other men's resources.
And what is true of genius is equally true of the religion
of Israel.
CHAPTER IX
THE CLASSIFYING OF THE NATIONS
There is in the Book of Genesis (x.) a table of the chief
nations with whom the authors were acquainted. The
nations named in the chapter are more or less closely
related to each other. And the compiler wants to
assign Israel its rightful place among the nations of
antiquity. His ultimate object is to give an account
of the history of the chosen people. He felt compelled
to say something about the growth of other nations,
to trace the origin of all back to a common source, and
to show how Israel sprang from them. After making
this clear he confines himself entirely to the descendants
of Shem, and farther on to a special branch of the family
of Terah, from which Abraham sprang.
The principle of the classification adopted by the
compiler is not purely ethnological, in the strict sense
of the word ; the peoples or tribes implied in it as
closely related by family ties are not so related at all.
" The genealogical table is merely a picturesque con-
ventional fashion of expressing geographical and poli-
tical relationships, though the genealogies may have
been understood literally by some readers. In the
71
72 NO FAMILY RELATION
case of such a set of geographical statistics a reader
who thought he had further or more correct informa-
tion would make additions or corrections in the margin,
and some of these would afterwards be copied into the
text. Hence we may expect to find here, not only
extracts from the original sources and editorial matter,
but also other additions and modifications (see verses
18, 19, 24)." 1
The Canaanites had no blood-relation with the
Egyptians (verse 6). The Hittites had no racial con-
nection with the Canaanites (verse 15). Elam and the
Assyrians were not connected by blood. So that other
considerations than that of family relationship domi-
nated the compiler.
All that can be said of Babylonian and Assyrian
discoveries in this connection is that they contain
numerous names of peoples and tribes which illustrate
many of the names contained in this chart, but there
is no foundation for the assumption that the names
contained in this classification had their origin in
Babylonia- Assyria.
Gomer is an Assyrian name Gimirrai, a race fre-
quently mentioned by Esarhaddon (681-668 B.C.) ;
he speaks of having defeated the Gimirrai. Ashur-
banipal (668-625 B.C.) states that these people invaded
Lydia in the days of Gugu, the famous King of Lydia
(687-653 B.C.).
1 Genesis, by Bennett, p. 159.
NIMROD 73
Mada has been discovered on the tablets, which is
the same as Madai, the Medes (verse 2). It is often
mentioned from the time of Adad-nirari (812-783 B.C.).
Tubal and Meshech are the Tabali and Musku of
the inscriptions. Tabali is mentioned first by Shal-
maneser II. (860-825) i Musku is mentioned by Tiglath-
pileser I. (1100 B.C.).
Yavan is the name by which the Greeks were known
to Sargon (722-705 B.C.).
Cush (verse 6) are a people dwelling on the south of
Egypt, and are the Kush or Kesh which are often
mentioned in the Egyptian inscriptions. It is doubtful
whether the name Cush of verse 8 is the same as
the Cush of verses 6 and 7. The similarity of name
may have misled the compiler.
Nimrod. Dr. Driver says : " Upon Nimrod
(verse 8) archaeology has at present thrown no light ;
speculation has been busy with him ; and his name has
not hitherto been found on the monuments. Nor does
archaeology know of any one name which it can connect,
as verses 10, 11 connect Nimrod, both with the founda-
tion of Babylonian civilization and with its extension
to Nineveh. Babylon, as we know from a dynastic
list discovered by Mr. T. G. Pinches in 1880 among the
treasures of the British Museum, possessed a line of
eleven Kings, of one of whom — Khammurabi — ruling
2376-2333 B.C. ; and the contract tablets from this
period . . . which relate to the sales, loans, the letting
74 NINEVEH
of houses, fields and gardens, adoption, marriage, in-
heritance, etc., show that society was already highly
organized, and that legal formalities were habitually
observed."
Erech (Gen. x. 10). It is named as a city of Nimrod's
kingdom (now Warka). It was the capital of a mighty
King, Lugal-zaggisi, whose inscriptions have been dis-
covered, and whose rule was stated to have reached
as far as the Mediterranean Sea, and that before
4000 B.C.
Nineveh is first mentioned about 1800 B.C., when
under the rule of priest-kings. The earliest Assyrian
King known to us lived about 1450 B.C.
Calah (verse 12) was built by Shalmaneser I. about
1300 B.C.
" The oldest capital of Assyria was, however, neither
Nineveh nor Calah, but a city called Asshur about
sixty miles south of Nineveh, on the west bank of the
Tigris (now Kal'at-sherkat) ; this, though not men-
tioned in Gen. x. 11, is often named in the inscriptions
of the Assyrian Kings, and was not permanently super-
seded by Nineveh till the ninth century B.C. In the
light of these facts it becomes impossible to place the
beginnings of imperial power at Babylon and Nineveh
within the lifetime of a single man. But the two broad
facts which Gen. x. 10, 11 express — namely, that
Babylon was an older seat of civilization than Nineveh,
and that Nineveh was, as we might say, a younger
ASSYRIA'S HERITAGE 75
colony, sprung from it — are unquestionably correct : not
only did Assyria acquire political importance much
later than Babylon, but, as the monuments also show,
it was, moreover, dependent socially and materially
upon the older state."1
1 Authority and Archeology, p. 30.
CHAPTER X
THE INSCRIPTIONS AND CHRONOLOGY *
Excavations were carried out in Niffer in 1887, under
the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania. Niffer
was a mound situated to the south-east of Babylon,
on a branch of the Euphrates. After two years'
successful excavations a great temple dedicated to the
god Bel was discovered. The archives of the temple
Ekur were well stocked with the official legal documents,
dating chiefly from 1700 to 1200 B.C., when the city
was at the height of its glory.
It should be remembered that our present knowledge
of the history of Babylonia dates back to about
4000 B.C. For the period extending from about
4000 to 2300 B.C. the chronology is uncertain.2
" Of the struggles and campaigns of the earlier Kings
of the First Dynasty of Babylon we know little, for,
although we possess a considerable number of legal
and commercial documents of the period, we have
recovered no strictly historical inscriptions. Our main
1 See Gen. iv. 17-24, v. 1-32, xi. 10-32.
2 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Jastrow, p. 36.
76
TABLETS DATED 77
source of information is the dates upon these docu-
ments, which are not dated by the years of the reigning
King, but on a system adopted by the early Babylonian
Kings from their Sumerian predecessors. In the latter
periods of Babylonian history tablets were dated in
the year of the King who was reigning at the time the
document was drawn up, but this simple system had
not been adopted at this early period. In place of
this we find that each year was cited by the event of
greatest importance which occurred in that year.
This event might be the cutting of a canal, when the
year in which this took place might be referred to as
' the year in which the canal named Ai-khegallu was
cut ' ; or it might be the building of a temple, as in
the date-formula, ' the year in which the great temple
of the Moon-god was built ' ; or it might be the con-
quest of a city, such as ' the year in which the city of
Kish was destroyed.' Now it will be obvious that
this system of dating had many disadvantages. An
event might be of great importance for one city, while
it might never have been heard of in another district ;
thus it sometimes happened that the same event was
not adopted throughout the whole country for desig-
nating a particular year, and the result was that
different systems of dating were employed in different
parts of Babylonia. Moreover, when a particular
system had been in use for a considerable time, it
required a very good memory to retain the order and
78 FIXING DATES
period of the various events referred to in the date-
formulas, so as to fix in a moment the date of a docu-
ment by its mention of one of them. In order to assist
themselves in their task of fixing dates in this manner,
the scribes of the First Dynasty of Babylon drew up
lists of the titles of the years, arranged in chronological
order under the reigns of the Kings to which they
referred. Some of these lists have been recovered,
and they are of the greatest assistance in fixing the
chronology, while at the same time they furnish us
with considerable information concerning the history
of the period of which we should otherwise have been
in ignorance." * The above gives an idea of the Baby-
lonian system of dating.
" In settling all problems connected with early
Chaldaean chronology, the starting-point was, and in
fact still is, the period of Sargon I. of Agade, inasmuch
as the date of his reign is settled, according to the
reckoning of the scribes of Nabonidus, as about
3800 B.C. It is true that this date has been called in
question and ingenious suggestions for amending it
have been made by some writers, while others have
rejected it altogether, holding that it merely represented
a guess on the part of the late Babylonians, and could
be safely ignored in the chronological schemes which
they brought forward. But nearly every fresh dis-
1 Egypt and Western Asia in the Light of Recent Discoveries,
by King and Hall, p. 243 et seq.
TRADITIONS CONFIRMED 79
covery made in the last few years has tended to confirm
some point in the traditions current among the later
Babylonians with regard to the earlier history of their
country. Consequently, reliance may be placed with
increased confidence on the truth of such traditions
as a whole, and we may continue to accept those state-
ments which yet await confirmation from documents
more nearly contemporary with the early period to
which they refer. It is true that such a date as that
assigned by Nabonidus to Sargon is not to be regarded
as absolutely fixed, for Nabonidus is obviously speaking
in round numbers, and we may allow for some minor
inaccuracies in the calculations of his scribes. But it
is certain that the later Babylonian priests and scribes
had a wealth of historical material at their disposal
which has not come down to us. We may, therefore,
accept the date given by Nabonidus for Sargon of
Agade and his son Naram-Sin as approximately
accurate, and this is also the opinion of the majority of
writers on early Babylonian history."1 The tendency
at present is to fix the date of Sargon 1000 years
later.2
One kingdom had done away with a number of small
states, and art, culture, and civilization were in a highly
developed state.
1 Egypt and Western Asia in the Light of Recent Discoveries,
by King and Hall, p. 185 et seq.
2 King, Meyer, and others.
80 THE TEMPLE AT NIPPUR
" By the substitution of a great and compact empire
for the small rival principalities into which the country
was parcelled out, and by the remarkable impulse given
to all branches of activity, and by the full expression
in all directions of art, a culture, a civilization, the slow
development of which had occupied the previous cen-
turies— nay, millenniums — it marks a culminating
point in the history of the ancient East."1
The old temple at Nippur, upon which other
buildings were erected, is supposed to have been built
not later than 7000 to 6000 B.C. " The vases, bearing
long inscriptions, presented to the sanctuary of Nippur
at about 4000 B.C. by the Lugal-zaggisi, and the numer-
ous sculptured stones, with inscriptions recording the
public buildings, their victories, and their votive
offerings, which have come down to us from the Kings
of Lagash (now Telloh), and which must belong sub-
stantially to the same age, afford conclusive evidence
that the actual beginning of art and civilization in
Babylonia precede 4000 B.C. by many centuries, not
to say by many millennia. It is particularly observable
that the art of writing, though the characters are
archaic in type, and decidedly ruder than those which
appear at a later age, is already, at the date just men-
tioned, familiarly practised."2
To turn aside for a moment to Egypt.2 Explorations
1 Light from, the East, by Ball, p. 53.
2 Authority and Archaeology, p. 33.
EGYPT 81
in that country teach us a similar lesson. The date
of Menes, the first historical King of Egypt, is fixed by
Professor Petrie at 4777 B.C., Budge at 4400 B.C.
Excavations have shown that civilization was very
advanced in that period. The pyramids of the Fourth
Dynasty (3988 B.C.) were highly artistic and remarkably
finished. Traces have been discovered in the Valley
of the Nile of a race that dwelt there before the
time of Menes which was totally unlike the Egyptian
race.
Egypt joins with Babylonia and Assyria in proving
that the origin of man must date from a period far
more remote than that assigned to him in the Old
Testament.
Inscriptions in three entirely different languages
have been discovered — Sumerian, Babylonian, and
Egyptian. All belong to an age considerably earlier
than the date given in Biblical chronology.
Professor Sayce says of the chronology " that it is
the skeleton, as it were, on which the flesh of history
is laid." x Some of the early Old Testament events are
designated to us as belonging to the age of Abraham,
the age of Exodus, or to the Mosaic age. We seek in
vain for a chronology in the Old Testament till the reign
of David, and even at that comparatively late period
we are more in the realm of probabilities than of facts.
The early history of the Hebrews is like the early history
1 The Early History of the Hebrews, p. 141^/ seo.
6
82 BIBLICAL DATA
of the Egyptians in that it has no chronology. The
Egyptians measured time by dynasties before the rise
of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and from that period dates
were used. The only trustworthy method by which
dates can be fixed to the events of the patriarchal
period or the Exodus is to find synchronism — i.e.,
tabular arrangement of contemporary events between
the Hebrews and the dated history of other peoples or
nations.
That it is difficult to harmonize the Biblical data
and to form a consistent whole is made evident by the
number of Biblical chronologies that have been com-
piled. It is no longer possible to take the Old Testa-
ment data as a reliable basis. There are many reasons
that make it impossible. Who can believe that men
actually lived nine hundred years or more ? And it
is equally impossible to believe that man was created
at so late a date as that fixed by the chronology of the
Old Testament. That the historicity of these numbers
is incredible does not do away with the fact that the
author had an object in view. He probably had a
theory, and built upon it. The round number ten as
the number of generations in the first period of the
world's history points to a theory. It is not easy to
get at his theory on account of the differences in the
texts which have been handed down to us.
There are really three systems which are incom-
patible, and we shall name them briefly.
THREE TEXTS 83
1. The Massoretic Hebrew text is one. It makes the
period from the Creation to the call of Abraham 2,000
solar years, or 2,056 lunar years. This number of
years is divided as follows : 1,600 years extending from
the Creation to the Deluge, and 400 years from the Flood
to the call of Abraham.
2. The Septuagint is the second system of chronology.
According to this reckoning 2,200 solar years or 2,262
lunar years elapsed between the Creation and the
Flood, which are divided as follows : 1,600 years ex-
tending from the Creation to the birth of Noah, and
600 years from that date to the Deluge ; and 1,200 are
reckoned from the Deluge to the call of Abraham.
3. The Samaritan text is the third system of chron-
ology. The period is divided into two equal parts of
1,200 years each : 1,200 years from the Creation to the
birth of the sons of Noah, and 1,200 comprising the
rest of the period.
In the section which describes the ten patriarchs
we have apparently a Babylonian influence ; the ten
patriarchs seem to correspond to the ten Babylonian
Kings who reigned in the antediluvian period.1 The
Chaldean account assigns 168 myriads of years to the
Creation of the world, whereas the Biblical tradition
assigns 168 hours — i.e., seven days for the same event.
How to explain this remarkable coincidence which
is at the same time a contradiction ? The Biblical
1 Genesis, by Gunkel, p. 1 21 et seq.
6—2
84 THE COSMOLOGICAL SYSTEMS
statement is in keeping with the Jewish conception of
God's power in Creation. The idea is that God accom-
plished in one hour what the Chaldean legend ascribed
to 10,000 years.
It is remarkable that the number of weeks in the
1,656 years of Genesis is the number of five-year
periods in the Chaldean sum (432,000 years).1 Further-
more, Enoch, the seventh in the Biblical list, corre-
sponds to the seventh Babylonian King, who was called
by the sun-god into his presence, and instructed in the
secrets of astronomy and astrology.2
We never find a settled era, a definite date from
which years were counted, at the very beginning, or
even at an early period, of a nation's history. If
anything of this kind has seemed to appear in early
times (several nations have attempted to obtain a
satisfactory chronological method) it has always turned
out to be in the highest degree uncertain, or really to
rest on later calculations. The Hebrews are no excep-
tion to this rule.
" It is obvious that all these systems (Massoretic
Hebrew text, Septuagint, and the Samaritan text) are,
like the chronological systems of the Egyptians, the
Babylonians, or Hindus, mere artificial schemes of an
astronomical character, and differing from the latter
only in their more modest computation of time. For
1 Marti's article " Chronology " in Encyclopaedia Biblica.
2 See Old Testament History, by H. P. Smith, p. 23.
THEIR UNTRUSTWORTHINESS 85
historical purposes they are worthless, and indicate
merely that the materials for a chronology were entirely
wanting. The ages assigned to the patriarchs before
the Flood, for example, stand on a level with the reigns
of the ten antediluvian Kings of Chaldea, which were
extended over 120 sari, or 432,000 years. The post-
diluvian patriarchs are in no better position ; indeed,
one of them, Arphaxad, is a geographical title, and the
Septuagint interpolates after him a certain Kainan, of
whom neither the Hebrew nor the Samaritan text
knows anything." x
After the call of Abraham we are not on any more
sure footing. The great age of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob is marvellous, very improbable, though not quite
impossible, and the dates recorded in the narratives
do not always agree. There are apparent and, to my
mind, real contradictions between certain statements.
The birth of Isaac was regarded as an extraordinary
event on account of his father's old age, but forty years
later six children are born to Abraham after the death
of Sarah (Gen. xxv. 1, 2). Again, according to the chron-
ology of Gen. xxv. 26, xxvi. 34, xxxv. 28, Isaac must
have been lying upon his death-bed for eighty years.
Then, again, explicit statements are made with
regard to the period the Israelites were in Egypt. In
Gen. xv. 13 Abraham is told : " Know of a surety that
thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs,
1 The Early History of the Hebrews, p. 143.
86 INCONSISTENCIES
and shall serve them : and they shall afflict them four
hundred years." In Exod. xii. 40 we are told : " Now
the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in
Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years." There is
a discrepancy between these two accounts.
In Gen. xv. 16 it is stated that " in the fourth
generation they shall come hither again " — that is,
the children of Israel should return into Canaan.
According to this narrative the words were spoken to
Abraham, and the fourth generation was that of
Joseph himself. But this does not tally with other
statements, and so some men make the statement to
refer to Moses and Aaron, as the fourth generation
from Levi. But, as a matter of fact, Moses and Aaron
did not come again to Palestine, and the genealogy
of the daughters of Zelophehad (Num. xxvii. 1) makes
the generation that did enter Canaan the seventh from
Joseph.
" Time, in fact, cannot be reckoned by generations ;
we do not know how many links in the chain may have
been dropped : ' son ' is Semitic idiom, being fre-
quently equivalent to descendant, while the names are
often merely geographical, like Gilead and Machir in
the Genealogy of Zelophehad, and therefore have no
chronological value." 1
The case is no better with the chronology of the
interval that extends from the Exodus to the building
1 The Early History of the Hebrews, p. 144.
THE NUMBER FORTY 87
of the Temple of Solomon. We have here, indeed, a
check in 1 Kings vi. 1 which makes the building of the
Temple begin in the 480th year after the Exodus, but
this number makes its appearance at a time when the
Temple of Solomon was no more. It bears, moreover,
the clear impress of being artificial, for it plainly counts
from Moses to David twelve generations of forty years
each, which we can easily identify as follows : Moses,
Joshua, Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah,
Samson, Eli, Samuel, Saul, and David. If the numbers
in the Book of Judges are added, we have 410 years.
It leaves seventy years for the sojourn in the wilder-
ness, the judgeship of Eli and Samuel, the reigns of Saul
and David, and the first four years of Solomon ! I
need not enter into discussion of the unsuccessful
methods which have been adopted to overcome or
account for this palpable difficulty.1
That the number 480, however, has really been
based on the number forty seems probable. Forty
years in Hebrew idiom merely signified an indeter-
minate and unknown period of time, and the Moabite
stone shows that the same idiom existed also in the
Moabite language. Mesha says in the inscription :
" Omri took the land of Medeba, and [Israel] dwelt in
it during his days and half the days of his son, alto-
gether forty years." The real length of time was not
1 The Early History of the Hebrews, p. 142 et seq. ; " Chronology"
in Encyclopedia Biblica.
88 CORRECT CHRONOLOGY
more than fifteen years. Thus Absalom is said, in
2 Sam. xv. 7, to have asked permission to leave
Jerusalem " after forty years,"1 although the length of
time was little more than two years. The period of
forty years, which meets us again and again in the
Book of Judges, is simply the equivalent of an unknown
length of time : it denotes the want of materials and
the consequent ignorance of the writer. Twenty, the
half of forty, is equally an expression of ignorance ; and
the only dates available for chronology are those which
represent a definite space of time, like the eight years
of Chushan-rishathaim's oppression of Israel, or the six
years of Jephthah's judgeship.2
For Hebrew chronology we must look outside the
Bible itself. At certain points Hebrew history comes
into touch with the monumental records of Egypt,
Babylonia, and Assyria, and if we are to date the events
it records, it must be by their aid. For a long period
Egypt was without a chronology, and in this respect
it was in the same state as the Israelites. But we are
on surer grounds in Babylonia and Assyria. In Baby-
lonia dates were fixed by the reign of the Kings and the
events of the several years of each reign. The great
commercial relations of the country, and the contracts
that were constantly made between parties, meant
that exact dating was a necessity in the land. The
1 Some versions read " four."
2 The Early History of the Hebrews^ p. 145 et seq.
ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY 89
Assyrians were more precise in their business trans-
actions than even their neighbours the Babylonians ;
and of all the Oriental nations the historical instinct
was more highly developed in the Assyrians than in
any of the others. And at an early age an accurate
system of chronology had been devised. But the lists
hitherto discovered are of a comparatively late date,
about 1000 b.c, and from 909 to 666 B.C. we have a
reliable record of time.1
1 The Early History of the Hebrews, p. 147.
CHAPTER XI
THE TOWER OF BABEL
The story of the Tower of Babel (Gen. xi. 1-9) suggests
that it came from Babylon. No similar Babylonian
legend has been discovered. " We have in this story,
in the interpretation of the word ' Babel,' an example
of that curious etymologizing which I have so often
referred to. Properly Babel, or Bab-ilu, to give the
ordinary Babylonian form, means ' the gate of God.' ,
It is here interpreted as meaning ' confusion '"*
Mankind settled in Babylonia as one community,
having one language in common. The inhabitants
decided to build a city and a tower that they might keep
together. But Yahweh perceived a danger in that
they might become too powerful ; he made them speak
different languages, so that they could not under-
stand one another, they were scattered over the face of
the earth. Hence the city was called " confusion." 2
Similar stories of one original language are cited from
other folk-lore.
It is evident from the narrative in Genesis that the
1 Early Hebrew Story, by Peters, p. 260.
2 Genesis, by Bennett.
90
THE TOWER LOCATED 91
Babylonian culture and antiquity made a deep impres-
sion upon the minds of the Israelites.
It is difficult to say for certain what tower is referred
to. It has often been supposed to be the Ziggurat
(or Zikkurat, from the verb zukkuru, to elevate),
which is a massive pyramidical tower, ascending in
stage-like terraces, with a temple at the top.1 This
is now called Birs Nimroud. It stood in the immediate
neighbourhood of Babylon at Borsippa. In one of
his inscriptions Nebuchadnezzar says of this Ziggurat
that a former King had built it and carried it up to the
height of forty-two ells, but had never completed it.
It has long since fallen into decay. Any traveller in
Babylonia must have observed this striking ruin in the
immediate neighbourhood of the capital, and as he
pondered over the meaning of these strange structures
in general, he must have asked himself in particular
why this tower of enormous size was never finished.2
Dr. Peters says that two different questions are
answered in this Babel story, as we have it, which
suggests that we have two stories combined in one.
One question : Why do men speak different languages ?
If all people have descended from the same man, why
don't they have one and the same language ? The
second question : What is the origin and purpose of
these mighty pyramids that exist in the land ?
1 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 615 et sea.
2 Early Hebrew Story, p. 261.
92 TWO QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Now, whether the traveller drew the answer to the
first question out of his own imagination, or whether
the people of the country gave him the tradition, we
cannot say. But the answer is found in a story
(common in other mythologies) of man's insolent
ambition to make himself equal to the gods, to contend
with them, and take possession of heaven itself. Man
sought this object by erecting a tower in steps one
above the other. God interfered, confused the language
of the men so that they could not speak one to another,
and then scattered them into different nations.1
The other part of the story, which may have been a
part at first of a separate legend, is based on a wrong
interpretation of the word " Babel." The meaning
may have been put into it, and not derived from it.
It may have been an attempt to explain the conditions
that existed at the time. In the city of Babel or Babylon
men from all parts of the known world met. Differ-
ent customs and languages came with the men. Taking
this city all in all, it must have been a confusion of
tongues. There was a mixture in the languages. In
the different quarters of the city itself there were the
same conditions, on a smaller scale, as in the world at
large. In the original story the confusion of tongues
was brought about possibly by the gods, but when it
became part of the religion of Israel, God caused the
confusion.
1 Early Hebrew Story, pp. 261, 262.
TRAVELLERS' TALES 93
" As I have said, no parallel myth or legend has yet
been found in the Babylonian records ; and, indeed, this
story sounds rather like travellers' tales, told by simple
but pious Israelites, who had visited the distant land
of Babylon and brought home tales of its wonders and
their explanation of the same, partly as they heard them
there, partly as they themselves expounded them." l
1 Early Hebrew Story, p. 263.
CHAPTER XII
FROM ABRAHAM TO JOSEPH
We will limit our observations to Gen. xi. 27-32.
" And Haran died before his father Terah in the land
of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees " (verse 28).
Ur (Ass. Uru) was an important city, and much
more ancient than Babylon. Two of the early Kings
of Ur — Ur-bau and his son Dungi (about 2800 B.C.) —
have left engraved cylinders, numerous buildings,
works of art in Ur and in the surrounding towns. Ur
was an important commercial centre. The Euphrates
ran almost by its gates, and formed a means of com-
munication with Upper Syria, while the city had roads
that joined it with Southern Syria and with Arabia.
The well-known god of Ur was Sin, the moon-god.
The Chaldees (Heb. Kasdim). Professor Sayce is
of opinion that the word " Chaldees " did not belong
originally to Ur, and that it is of Palestinian addition.1
Kasdim is the Hebrew word for Chaldees, and the
Babylonian and Assyrian form is Kaldu (" Chal-
daeans "). It is a tribe which is often mentioned in
1 Monuments, p. \t$etseq.
94
HARAN 95
the inscriptions from 880 B.C. The Chaldees settled
at that time in Lower Babylonia (the Persian Gulf is
called the " sea of the land of Kaldu "), and as they
developed in strength and influence they gradually
moved inland. In 721 B.C. Merodach-baladan, " King
of the land of Kaldu," made himself for twelve years
King of Babylon ; and ultimately, under Nabopolassar
(625-605 B.C.) and Nebuchadnezzar (604-561 B.C.) the
Kaldu became the ruling caste in Babylonia.1
Haran (verse 28). This word has presented a great
deal of difficulty. " The initial letter (He) of this
name in Hebrew is different from that (Heth) of the
place Haran in verses 31, 32. Nevertheless, it has
been supposed that the one is a corruption of the other,
and that this Haran is the place personified." 2 This
is a doubtful theory ; we are uncertain whether Haran
is the name of a place, a people, a deity, or an indi-
vidual.
It is true that an ancient city named Haran or
Kharran has been discovered. Its site is on the bank
of the Bellkh, a tributary which runs into the
Euphrates. If we compare Gen. xxiv. 10 — " And the
servant took ten camels of his master, and departed ;
for all the goods of his master were in his hand : and
he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of
Nahor " — with Gen. xxvii. 43 — " Now therefore, my son,
1 Genesis, by Driver, p. 141 ; Genesis, by Bennett, p. 173.
2 Genesis, by Driver, p. 141.
96 AN IMPORTANT CITY
obey my voice ; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother
to Haran" — it appears that Kharran was in Mesopo-
tamia, in the Hebrew, Aram-Naharaim — i.e., Aram
(or Syria) of the two rivers.1 " The Egyptian inscrip-
tions mention this region under the name Naharina,
and the Tel-el-Amarna letters (about 1400 B.C.) under
the names Nakhrima and Narima. The Hebrew
designation is clearer than the English. The region
north-east of Palestine was inhabited largely by
Armaean (or Syrian) tribes, and ' Aram of Naharaim '
denotes that part of the region which lay between the
' two rivers,' whether the rivers meant be the Euphrates
and the Tigris, in the upper part of their courses, or, as
others think more probable, the Euphrates in its upper
course and the Habor (2 Kings xvii., xviii. 11), now
the Khabour, a river flowing into the Euphrates from
the north, some distance to the east of the Belikh."
Kharran was a very important city for thousands of
years, though there is nothing remaining of it except
a few mounds and the remains of a medieval castle.
The name frequently occurs on the Assyrian tablets.
Sin, the Moon-god, was worshipped here. And Nabo-
na'id, the last King of Babylon (555-538 B.C.), restored,
according to two of his inscriptions, the temple of the
Moon-god in Ur and Kharran.2
It is stated that Abraham's home was in Ur, and that
he left Ur and settled in Canaan. But Gen. xi. 28
1 Authority and Archceology, p. 37. 2 Ibid., p. 38.
UR 97
states that Ur was the " land of Abraham's birthplace,"
whereas in Gen. xxiv. 7 the same words are applied
(as appears from a comparison of verse 4 and xxvii. 43)
to Kharran ; and also other passages in Genesis convey
the idea that the writers took Kharran to be the
dwelling-place of Abraham's kindred. Two traditions,
says Dr. Driver, seem to have been current with regard
to the primitive home of the Hebrews, one connecting
them with Ur, in South Babylonia, the other con-
necting them with Kharran, in North- West Mesopo-
tamia. It should be noted that the names of Hebrew
or Canaanitish persons who resided in Babylonia, even
before the age of Abraham, have been discovered on
contract tablets, and it serves to prove that greater
social and commercial intercourse existed between
Babylonia and the West than was thought possible at
one time. But it cannot be positively said that
Abraham migrated from Ur. Nothing to that effect
has been discovered hitherto in the inscriptions.
Lot's Rescue.
In the Book of Genesis (xiv.) we have an account of
the rescue of Lot and his retinue.
Verses 1-12. Four Kings from the East defeat the
five Kings of the Valley of the Jordan (Sodom and
Gomorrah). The five Kings are defeated in the " Vale
of Siddim." The conquerors spoil the cities, and Lot
is carried away captive.
7
98 LOT'S RESCUE
In this chapter we deal with records that are to
some extent confirmed by the Babylonian inscriptions.
That Amraphel, King of Shinar ; Arioch, King of Ellasar ;
Chedorlaomer, King of Elam ; and Tidal, King of
nations, were historical personages may be assumed as
accurate. They are not mythological characters. It
is very probable that Elam was at one time the greatest
power in the countries that lay east of the Euphrates,
which verses 5, 9, and 17 imply ; and it is quite likely
that the dominant power of the eastern countries held
a certain sway over Palestine during the same period,
and warlike expeditions similar to the one described in
this chapter were not uncommon. That the four
Eastern Kings named in this chapter were contem-
poraries is probable, and also that Elam was the most
dominant power of the four at the time. To that
extent the inscriptions confirm the authenticity of this
narrative.1
Whether these Eastern Kings undertook a joint ex-
pedition against Palestine, or against the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah, and whether a battle was
fought in the mysterious Valley of Siddim, which was
noted for its slime-pits, we cannot say. The inscrip-
tions neither confirm nor deny the narrative. No
mention is made by any tablet of Abraham, Lot, or
Melchizedek.
" The monuments, again, . . . though they have
1 Genesis, by Bennett, p. 185.
NO LIGHT FROM THE INSCRIPTIONS 99
thrown some light on the Kings' names mentioned in
Gen. xiv. 1, and have shown that it would be no im-
possibility for a Babylonian or Elamite King of the
twenty-third century B.C. to undertake an expedition
to the Far West, that no mention of the particular
expedition recorded in Gen. xiv., they consequently
furnish no independent corroboration of it, nor do
they contribute anything to neutralize the improba-
bilities which, rightly or wrongly, have been supposed
to attach to details of it. . . . They thus fall far short
of demonstrating its historical character. (Mr. Grote
long ago pointed out the fallacy of arguing that because
a given person was historical, therefore a particular
exploit attributed to him by tradition was historical
likewise.) And still less do they demonstrate that the
role attributed to Abraham in the same chapter is
historical. The evidence for both these facts rests at
present solely upon the evidence of the Book of Genesis
itself. Upon the same testimony we may believe
Melchizedek to have been a historical figure, whose
memory was handed down by tradition ; but no evi-
dence of the fact is afforded by the traditional inscrip-
tions." l
" Hence archaeology by itself does not at present
establish the authenticity of the whole chapter. It is
true, as we have said, that certain Kings mentioned
here are shown to be historical personages ; but we
1 Genesis, by Driver, pp. xlix, 1.
7—2
ioo JOSEPH
cannot therefore conclude that the whole account is
accurate history, any more than we can argue that Sir
Walter Scott's Anne of Geier stein is throughout a correct
account of actual events because we know that Charles
the Bold and Margaret of Anjou were real people."1
" Scholars are divided as to the historical value of the
chapter. Some are inclined to accept it as substan-
tially a record of facts ; others find little or nothing
historical beyond the names of the four Kings ; while
others occupy positions intermediate between these
extremes."1
Joseph.2
According to Biblical criticism, more than one author
has written the story of Joseph.3 If so, it is more
difficult to understand the history of Joseph. To keep
strictly to the title of this book one should not enter
the land of Egypt at all. But we wish to make a
digression in this brief treatment of the ever-fascinating
story of Joseph. These chapters give an insight into
some of the customs, the events of Egyptian history,
Egyptian social and political life, and Egyptian litera-
ture which are confirmed by the Egyptian inscriptions.
Joseph's experiences with Potiphar and his wife
(Gen. xxxix. 7 et seq.) are held by many scholars to be
1 Genesis, by Driver, pp. 185-187.
2 See Genesis xxxix., 1.
3 Joseph, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary ; in the Encyclopedia
Biblicaj The Book of Genesis, by Driver; Genesis, by Bennett.
AN UP AND BATA 101
a version of an Egyptian romance entitled " The Tale
of the Two Brothers." The tale can be traced back to
the Eighteenth Dynasty, and it is maintained that the
romance is grafted to an Israelitish tribal hero. For the
complete tale we must ask the reader to turn elsewhere.1
There were two brothers — the elder Anup, the younger
Bata — who were much attached to each other. Bata
managed Anup's affairs with great success. One day
when they were ploughing together Bata came to the
house for some seed, leaving Anup in the field. Anup's
wife tempted Bata without success, and when Anup
returned in the evening his wife told him that Bata
had outraged her. Anup rushed out to kill Bata, who,
however, was protected by Re, the Sun-god, and at last
convinced Anup of his innocence, whereupon Anup
went home and killed his wife. The end of the story
resembles the end of the story of Joseph. Bata had
an adventurous career, which is characteristic of fairy-
tales, and ultimately became the King of Egypt.
" The conditions of the semi- Asiatic rule of Amen-
hotep IV. and his apparently Semitic Vizier, Janhamu,
seem to be reflected in the story of Joseph's promotion
to favour and his government of Egypt. The hisr
torian (or storian) of Joseph was familiar, also, with
the peculiar agrarian conditions of Egypt, dating from
a still earlier period, but connected by him with the
1 Life in Ancient Egypt, by Erman, English translation, p. 378
et seq ; Egyptian Tales, by Petrie (1895). ii., p. 36 et seq j Monu-
ments ^ by Sayce, p. 209 et seq.
102 EGYPTIAN NAMES
hero of his story. The Egyptian names used in the
narrative, on the other hand, appear to belong to a
much later period, not earlier, certainly, than iooo B.C.
Altogether we have in Joseph's story a most interesting
combination of elements from various sources and
periods, woven together with such art as to give a
vivid, personal narrative.
" The facts which the Egyptian inscriptions have
disclosed favour the theory that the story of Joseph
was written in a comparatively late period. It is not
stated which Pharaoh ruled at the time. Nor is it
stated in Exodus. The Egyptian name Zaphnath-
Pa-neah and other similar names have been dis-
covered for the first time in the Twentieth Dynasty
(1300 B.C.), but oftener in the Twenty-Second Dynasty
(1000 B.C.). Asnath and other names were familiar
in Egypt, and have been found on the tablets later
than the age of Joseph. It is very seldom that Asnath
is met with earlier than the Twenty-Second Dynasty.
The combination, in a single narrative, of names, all
otherwise rare or unknown at an early period, is re-
markable ; and though future discoveries may correct
the inference, it is impossible not to feel that it creates
a presumption against their being historical." 1
" We must admit that, while archaeology has richly
illustrated the possibility of the main outline of the
Book of Genesis from Abraham to Joseph, it has not
1 Authority and Archceology, p. 52.
NO LIGHT FROM THE TABLETS 103
one whit of proof to offer for the personal existence or
characters of the Patriarchs themselves. . . . But
amidst all the crowded life we peer in vain for any
trace of the fathers of the Hebrews, we listen in vain
for any mention of their names. This is the whole
change archaeology has wrought : it has given us a
background and an atmosphere for the stories of
Genesis ; it is unable to recall, or to certify, their
heroes." l
1 Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old Testament
by G. A. Smith, pp. 101, 102.
CHAPTER XIII
THE KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH
Though the inscriptions throw some light on the
foreign tribes or places or deities which are recorded
in the books which stand between the Pentateuch and
the Books of Kings, yet the history of them remains
in obscurity. " During the whole period from Meren-
ptah to the division of the kingdom under Rehoboam
there is no mention, upon the monuments at present
known, either of the Israelites in general, or of indi-
vidual leaders or Kings, or of any of the foreign wars
or invasions by which, during this period, the Old
Testament describes them as being assailed. So far
as the inscriptions are concerned, the history of Israel
during the entire period is a blank." x
But the epoch that covers the Books of Kings is
different. On a Moabite inscription are the names of
Omri and Ahab. It is evident that there were very
intimate relations between Assyria and Israel and
Judah from 900 B.C. The direct relations between
Assyria and the other two nations during that period
1 Authority and Archceology, p. 80.
J04
OMRI AND AHAB 105
surpassed anything that went before, so far as we can
tell. Assyrian splendour was at its height ; and the
Kings of Assyria, in their frequent military expeditions,
often came into hostile relation with the tribes of
Western Asia. And for that reason occasions pre-
sented themselves for the Kings of Israel and Judah
to be mentioned by name, or for public events to be
inscribed in the Assyrian annals which are recorded
in the Old Testament.
The light of the tablets cannot be confined to the
period covered by the Kings ; the inscriptions supply
valuable information that sheds a flood of light upon
the prophetical writings of the Old Testament respect-
ing the policy and movements of the Assyrian Kings,
and serve to illumine many an obscure saying and a
dark passage.
The first Hebrew names that have been discovered
on the Assyrian tablets are Omri and Ahab ; from that
time onwards the names of Benhadad (who was King
over Syria during the reign of Ahab), Jehu, Hazael,
Pekah, Ahaz, and Hezekiah are mentioned. There are re-
corded Tiglath-pileser's invasion of Palestine, Sargon's
conquest of Samaria, Syria's overthrow by Senna-
cherib, and his march as far as Jerusalem, the tribute
which he levied, and his disappearance in the direction
of the North.
Biblical criticism has not cast any doubt upon the
names, nor the facts which are narrated in these books.
106 THE DATES OF THE BOOKS OF KINGS
The critics hold that the Books of Kings were compiled
from well-known contemporary histories. The critics
are of opinion that later interpolations have been
inserted which are of less historical value — narratives
that receive no light whatsoever from the inscriptions.1
" What critics have judged to be late, and probably of
less historic value, have been certain narratives, for
which archaeology has no evidence to offer, as well as
the framework in which the editor has bound the whole
history, and supplied, out of a general scheme, a
chronology, from the standpoint of a later age, a re-
ligious sentence on each monarch's reign.2
The chronology of the Books of Kings is inaccurate.
" Even the chronology of the divided kingdom after
the death of Solomon, in spite of the synchronisms the
compiler of the Books of Kings has endeavoured to
establish between the Kings of Judah and those of
Israel, has been the despair of historians, and scheme
after scheme has been proposed, in order to make it
self-consistent. The Assyrian monuments, however,
have now come to our help." 3 " For, while testifying
to the reality of Omri, Ahab, Jehu, and some of their
successors, as well as of the leading events of the
1 /. and II. Books of Kings, by Professor Skinner ; see the
Introduction.
2 Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old Testament, p. 66.
3 The Early History of the Hebrews, by Sayce, p. 146. For the
chronology of the Hebrew kingdoms, see The Prophets of Israel,
by W. Robertson Smith, p. 145 et seq., 404, 415^/ seq.
CHRONOLOGY COMPARED 107
history, it has shown from the contemporary Assyrian
data that the chronology, approximately correct so
far as the distance of one man or event from another
is concerned, has been placed by the editor from twelve
to twenty years too early — obviously in order to fit
it into the general system, adopted by the Hebrew
editors, of reckoning the years from Exodus to the
fall of the first Temple and the return from Exile." l
" The accuracy of the canons can in many cases be
checked by the information which we possess inde-
pendently of the reigns of many of the Kings, as of
Tiglath-pileser, Sargon, and Sennacherib. Thus, from
902 B.C. the Assyrian chronology is certain and pre-
cise. Reducing now the Assyrian dates to years B.C.,
and comparing them with the Biblical chronology,
some serious discrepancies at once reveal themselves,
the nature and extent of which will be most clearly
perceived by a brief tabular synopsis " 2 (see p. 108).
" Manifestly," Dr. Driver says, " all the Biblical
dates earlier than 734 B.C. are too high, and must be
considerably reduced ; the two events also in Heze-
kiah's reign, the fall of Samaria, and the invasion
of Sennacherib, which the Biblical writer treats as
separated by an interval of eight years, were sepa-
rated in reality by an interval of twenty-one years.
. . . The fact itself agrees with what has long been
1 Modern Criticism a?idthe Preaching of the Old Testament, p. 66.
2 Authority and Archeology, p. 118.
io8
A TABULAR SYNOPSIS
perceived by critics — viz., that the chronological
system of the Books of Kings does not form part of
the original documents preserved in them, but is the
work of the compiler, and shows signs of having been
arrived at through computation from the regnal years
of the successive Kings, the errors which it displays
being due to the fact that either the data at the com-
piler's disposal or his calculations were in some cases
incorrect." l
Dates according
Dates according
to Ussher's
to Assyrian
Chronology.
Inscription.
Reign of Ahab
918-897
Ahab named at the Battle of Karkar
854
Reign of Jehu
884-856
Tribute of Jehu
842
Reign of Menahem
772-761
Menahem mentioned by Tiglath-
pileser
738
Reign of Pekah
759-73°
Pekah dethroned by Tiglath-pileser
7342
Reign of Ahaz
742-726
Ahaz mentioned by Tiglath-pileser
734
Hezekiah's accession
726
Fall of Samaria in Hezekiah's sixth
year3 ...
721
722
Invasion of Sennacherib in Heze-
kiah's fourteenth year4
713
701
1 Authority and Archtzology, p. 119.
2 According to other authorities, 733 or 732.
3 2 Kings xviii. 10.
* Ibid., 13.
CHAPTER XIV
THE LAWS OF MOSES IN THE LIGHT OF THE CODE OF
HAMMURABI
The Code of Hammurabi is undoubtedly one of the
finest codes of laws in the history of the human race.
It came to light during the month of December and
January, 1901-1902. M. J. de Morgan, of the French
Exploration Expedition, discovered the tablets in
Elam, at Susa, which is situated on the banks of the
Euphrates. The Elamites were the great rivals of
Babylonia for centuries. It may be that an Elamite
conqueror carried off the stone from the temple of
Sippara, in Babylonia.
The antiquity and the original character of the law
of Moses can no longer be maintained. The Code of
Hammurabi bears a very striking resemblance to it in
many ways, but it is much older than the law of Moses.
The Code was enacted by Hammurabi, the great and
mighty King of Babylon. It dates from about 2250 B.C.,
but on the basis of his recently-discovered chronicles,
Mr. L. W. King now brings the date of Hammurabi
down to about 1900 B.C.1 (the date is doubtful). The Civil
1 Chronicles concerning Early Babylonian Kings, vol. i., p. 1 36
el seq.
109
no THE CODE AND THE LAWS
Code of Hammurabi is inscribed upon a block of black
diorite, and in size it is rather more than two metres
high, containing about 8,000 words. The law enables us
to obtain a very clear insight into the advanced state of
civilization which was prevalent about 2000 B.C. in the
South of Babylon. The ideal of equity which prevailed
among the people in that remote age was surprisingly
high. It is evident that in those early times the same
fundamental principles prevailed as were current at a
later age in Israel. The life of the Israelites under
Moses was much simpler than that of the Babylonians
under Hammurabi. The latter was far more com-
plicated and advanced. One striking instance is the
advanced stage surgery must have reached in medical
science. If a patient dies through an unsuccessful
operation the surgeon must pay a heavy fine, and his
licence is forfeited. The discovery of the Code of Ham-
murabi has established the fact beyond the shadow of
a doubt that it is much older than what is commonly
called the law of Moses. We do not wish to imply
for a moment that the younger code of laws was bor-
rowed from the older. What we do affirm is that the
same sense of justice and mercy exists, but are differ-
ently applied, in the two codes, because the circum-
stances of the Code of Hammurabi were very different
from those of the time of Moses. And, on the whole,
it may be that a more humane tendency is developed in
some of the provisions of the law of Israel.
HAMMURABI in
The ceremonial law is conspicuous by its absence
from the Code of Hammurabi. As there is no trace
of it, it may be claimed that the law of Israel is older.
There are at least two weighty objections to this view.
The oldest laws of Israel, the Book of the Covenant,
contains no directions concerning rites and ceremonies
in relation to the sacrifices to be observed at the public
worship generally. And also it is well known that the
sacrificial rites of Israel, as we shall show elsewhere,
differ not from the customs observed in the East in
olden times. And for that reason the Israelite cultus
could be denounced by the prophets of Israel and Judah
as heathen. As a matter of fact, the ceremonial law
of Israel belongs to the common stock of nations of
antiquity.
The inscription has forty-four columns, and falls
into three divisions. Something like 700 lines are
devoted by the King to describe his titles, his glory,
and beneficent deeds for his people, his worship of the
gods, and incidentally naming the cities and districts
in his dominion, and many interesting glimpses into
local cults. He wishes well for those who should pre-
serve and esteem his monument, but declares impre-
cations for any who should damage or remove it.
Hammurabi immortalized himself, not as Alexander
the Great by conquering the world, but as a wise, just,
and strong ruler. He built many new temples, rebuilt
and renovated many old ones ; he opened canals, im-
H2 AGRICULTURE
proved the soil, relieved distresses, proclaimed the
right, upheld the law, and his laws made the life and
property of his subjects secure.
The Code.
We will quote from the laws of Hammurabi which
throw light on the laws of Moses. The Code of Ham-
murabi has been translated, and may be found in a
convenient form in The Oldest Code of Laws in the
World, by C. H. W. Johns ; The Old Testament in the
Light of the Historical Records of Assyria and Baby-
lonia, Appendix, by T. G. Pinches ; The Laws of Moses
and the Code of Hammurabi, by S. A. Cook. The order
in which the laws stand is defective, and we will try to
classify so. ne of them under their proper titles.
Agriculture.
In Babylonia agriculture formed an important part
in the lives of the inhabitants, and the Code contains
important laws which set forth the relation between
landlord and tenant ; the laws define the conditions
under which recovery of waste land can be effected ;
they state the wages fixed by the harvester or for the
hire of a cart. The landlord of this age supplied imple-
ments and oxen to his tenants, and received in return
a fixed proportion of the profits derived from them.
Such a system had its advantages and disadvantages,
VIRGIN SOIL 1 13
so laws were enacted which safeguarded the interests
of both parties.
253. If a man has hired a man to reside in his field
and has furnished him seed, has entrusted him the oxen
and harnessed them for cultivating the field — if that
man has stolen the corn or plants, and they have been
seized in his hands, one shall cut off his hands.
254. If he has taken the seed, worn out the oxen,
from the seed which he has hoed he shall restore.
Very interesting are the laws which regulate the
payment for the cultivation of virgin soil. The land-
lord could not claim rent until the expiration of four
years. The owner shared then in the same proportion
as the tiller of the soil.
60. If a man has given a field to a gardener to plant
a garden, and the gardener has planted the garden,
four years he shall rear the garden ; in the fifth year the
owner of the garden and the gardener shall share
equally ; the owner of the garden shall cut off his share
and take it.
Canals were used very extensively in the country as
a means of transit or irrigation. The dikes had to
be constantly strengthened and kept in good repair, so
as not to be a serious menace to the produce of the land.
Carelessness in this respect carried with it heavy
penalties.
8
ii4 POSSESSIONS
53. If a man has neglected to strengthen his bank
of the canal, has not strengthened his bank, a breach
has opened out itself in his bank, and the waters have
carried away the meadow, the man in whose bank the
breach has been opened shall render back the corn
which he has caused to be lost.
54. If he is not able to send back the corn, one shall
give him and his goods for money, and the people of
the meadow whose corn the water has carried away shall
share it.
That is, the man must be sold into slavery.
Possessions.
250. If a wild bull in his charge has gored a man
and caused him to die, that case has no remedy.
251. If the ox has pushed a man, by pushing has
made known his vice, and he has not blunted his horn,
has not shut up his ox, and that ox has gored a man of
gentle birth and caused him to die, he shall pay half a
mina of silver.
And for a slave it was one-third.
252. If a gentleman's servant, he shall pay one-third
of a mina of silver.
Exod. xxi. 28-32. If the ox was wont to gore, and
its propensity had been testified to the owner, and he
had not kept it secured, the owner was put to death.
But if a ransom was laid upon him, he must pay what
SLAVES 115
was demanded. For a male or female slave, thirty
shekels was to be paid to the master. Greater value
is attached to the life of a slave than in the Code of
Hammurabi.
15-20. If a man has caused either a palace slave or
palace maid or a slave of a poor man or a poor man's
maid to go out of the gate, he shall be put to death.
If a man has harboured in his house a manservant or
a maidservant, fugitive from the palace, or a poor man,
and has not produced them at the command of the
commandant, the owner of that house shall be put
to death.
If a man has captured either a manservant or a
maidservant, a fugitive, in the open country, and has
driven him back to his master, the owner of the slave
shall pay him two shekels of silver.
If that slave will not name his owner, he shall drive
him to the palace, and one shall inquire into his past,
and cause him to return to his owner.
If he confine that slave in his house, and afterwards
the slave has been seized in his hand, that man shall be
put to death.
If the slave has fled from the hand of his captor, that
man shall swear by the name of God to the owner of
the slave, and shall go free.
Deut. xxiii. 15, 16. The law was very different in
Israel. " Thou shalt not deliver unto his master a
8—2
n6 THIEVES
servant which is escaped from his master unto thee ;
he shall dwell with thee, in the midst of thee, in the
place which he shall choose within one of thy gates,
where it liketh him best : thou shalt not oppress him."
" Laws relating to the protection of slaves and
animals from cruelty or injury (245-248) are more
probably framed with the intent to insure their pro-
tection as property, whereas in the Hebrew legislation
the analogous injunctions spring rather from feelings
of pure kindness. The furtherance of trade and com-
merce, together with the protection of property and
the maintenance of peace, have tempered the Baby-
lonian laws with justice, although the penalties for
their infraction are frequently severe and brutal." *
The Code of Hammurabi, as well as the Laws of
Moses, were severe on the thief in the night.
22-25. If a man has carried on brigandage, and has
been captured, that man shall be put to death.
If the brigand has not been caught, the man who has
been despoiled shall recount before God what he has
lost, and the city and governor in whose land and
district the brigandage took place shall render back to
him whatever of his was lost.
If it was a life, the city and governor shall pay one
mina of silver to his people.
1 The Laws of Moses and the Code of Hammtirabi, by S. A. Cook,
p. 275.
TRADE 117
If in a man's house a fire has been kindled, and a
man who has come to extinguish the fire has lifted up
his eyes to the property of the owner of the house, and
has taken the property of the owner of the house, that
man shall be thrown into that fire.
Exod. xxii. 1-4. " If a man shall steal an ox or a
sheep, and kill it, or sell it ; he shall pay five oxen for
an ox, and four sheep for a sheep. If the thief be found
breaking in, and be smitten that he die, there shall be
no blood-guiltiness for him. If the sun be risen upon
him there shall rbe blood-guiltiness for him ; for he
should make full restitution ; if he have nothing, then
he shall be sold for his theft. If the theft be found in
his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep, he shall
pay double."
8. If the thief has naught to pay, he shall be put to
death ; in Exodus he shall be sold.
General cases of lost or stolen property are treated
at length in the Code of Hammurabi (9-13), whereas
they are very short in the Laws of Moses (Exod.
xxii. 9).
Trade.
The shipping trade formed an important part in the
life of the Babylonians. From a commercial point of
view the inhabitants of Babylonia and Assyria led a
very strenuous life. Towns and cities were joined to-
n8 DEEDS
gether by canals. Many of the modern methods of
commerce can be traced back to Babylonia and Assyria.
It was very different in Israel at first. The modern
Jew loves commerce, but ancient Israel despised it.
Their ideas were simple, and their methods were very
primitive. In this they shared the ways which were
common to all the early Semites. Business was
transacted in Babylonia and Assyria on what is com-
monly termed in modern life " strictly business lines."
" In Babylon no business was legal unless a deed,
drawn up and duly signed, had made it so ; but when
Abraham had paid the price which made him master
of Machpelah, the bargain was concluded, and no men-
tion made of any written document."
There was a clear understanding between the mer-
chant and his agent.
101. If where he has gone he has not seen prosperity,
he shall make up and return the money he took, and
the agent shall give to the merchant.
122. If a man shall give silver, gold, or anything
whatever to a man on deposit, all whatever he shall
give he shall show to witnesses and fix bonds, and shall
give on deposit.
Lev. vi. 2 et seq. " If any one sin, and commit a trespass
against the Lord, and deal falsely with his neighbour
in a matter of deposit . . . then it shall be, if he hath
sinned and is guilty, that he shall restore . . . the deposit
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 119
which was committed to him ... he shall even restore
it in full, and shall add the fifth part more thereto :
unto him to whom it appertaineth shall he give it,
in the day of his being found guilty."
123. If without a witness and bonds he has given on
deposit, and where he has deposited they keep dis-
puting him, this case has no remedy.
The power of the lender was limited by several
special laws (268 et seq.).
The Administration of Justice.
The method of administering justice was more
advanced in Babylonia and Assyria than it was amongst
the primitive Semites. In Babylonia a judge presided at
each court, but the primitive Semites had no judge. The
judge had to be present sometimes when his sentence
was executed. First of all, he had to see if there was a
true bill. If the judge was satisfied that there were
sufficient reasons for further legal proceedings, then
he gave orders that witnesses must appear before a
given date. The term witness had more than one
meaning ; each plaintiff must be his own counsel to
plead his own case.
The gate of the city was the place of judgment in
ancient Babylonia and in Israel (1 Sam. vii. 16 ;
Job xxix. 7 et seq.). " In later times the Babylonians
ISo PLUNGED INTO THE RIVER
built temples at the city gates, and transferred the
trials to the temple courts."
Certain cases were common both to the Babylonians
and the Israelites. Where there was a lack of evidence
or other causes to prevent the cases being tried by
any human method, then they were transferred to the
decision of the deity in a trial by ordeal. The woman
suspected of infidelity to her husband was cast upon
the waters of the river. If she should float, she was
deemed not guilty ; but if she sank and was drowned,
it was considered a sign of divine vengeance, brought
about through her unfaithfulness.
2. If a man has put a spell upon a man, and has not
justified himself, he upon whom the spell is laid shall
go to the holy river ; he shall plunge into the holy
river, and if the holy river overcome him, he who wove
the spell upon him shall take to himself his house. If
the holy river makes that man to be innocent, and has
saved him, he who laid the spell upon him shall be put
to death. He who plunged into the holy river shall
take to himself the house of him who wove the spell
upon him.
132. If a wife of a man on account of another male
has had the finger pointed at her, and has not been
caught in lying with another male, for her husband
she shall plunge into the holy river.
5. If a judge has judged a judgment, decided a
decision, granted a sealed sentence, and afterwards
THE FAMILY 121
has altered his judgment, that judge, for the alteration
of the judgment that he judged, one shall put him to
account, and he shall pay twelvefold the penalty which
was in the said judgment, and in the assembly one
shall expel him from his judgment-seat, and he shall
not return, and with the judges at a judgment he shall
not take his seat.
Exod. xxiii. 6 et seq. " Thou shalt not wrest the judg-
ment of thy poor in his cause. Keep thee far from a
false matter ; and the innocent and righteous slay thou
not : for I will not justify the wicked. And thou shalt
take no gift : for the gift blindeth the wise, and
perverteth the words of the righteous."
The Family Relationship.
The Code of Hammurabi shows clearly that woman
was regarded as an inferior being to man. Woman
could trade and do business, on her own account or
in partnership. She could act as witness or plaintiff
in the law-courts. She could hold property of her own
and dispose of it as she liked. With regard to the
position of woman in Babylonia and Israel, Delitzsch
says : " The woman in Israel is the property of her
parents, and, later on, of her husband'; she is a valuable
element for purposes of work, on whom, in married
life, a large part of the largest business of the home
122 THE STATUS OF WOMAN
is imposed ; above all, she is, as in Islam, incompetent
to take part in the practice of the cultus. In the case
of the Babylonians all this was managed differently
and better. ... It is just in the domain of questions
concerning women that it can clearly be seen how
profoundly Babylonian culture has been influenced
by the non-Semitic civilization of the Sumerians."1
And Sayce remarks : " In the old Sumerian hymns
the woman takes precedence of the man. The Semitic
translation invariably reverses the order : the one has
' female and male,' the other ' male and female ' ; and
this is reflected in the position of the goddess Ishtar,
who, originally a goddess, the equal of the god, became
changed into the male deity in Southern Arabia and
Moab."2
" But it will ultimately be made clear that the
woman, notwithstanding this, is the legal chattel of
the man even in the Code of Hammurabi, and when all
evidence has been reviewed, it will be found that her
position is scarcely more independent than it was in
early Arabian life. The theory, therefore, of a
Sumerian (non-Semitic) state of culture where woman's
position was perfectly independent must be regarded
as questionable for the present." 3
1 Babel and Bible, p. 202.
2 The Religion of Ancient Assyria and Babylonia, p. 136.
3 The Laws of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi, pp. 72, 73.
See Egypt and Western Asia in the Light of Recent Discoveries,
by King and Hall, p. 265 et sea.
IMMORTALITY 123
163. If a man has married a wife, and she has not
granted him children, that woman has gone to her fate ;
if his father-in-law has returned him the dowry that
that man brought to the house of his father-in-law,
her husband shall have no claim on her marriage
portion : it belongs to the house of her father forsooth.
130. If a man has forced the wife of a man who has
not known the male, and is dwelling in the house of
her father, and has laid in her bosom, and one has
caught him, that man shall be killed; the woman
herself shall go free.
Exod. xxii. 16 is different : the cases are not parallel.
There are different punishments for adultery.
157. Intercourse with a man's own mother is punished
by burning both.
129. If the wife of a man has been caught in lying
with another male, one shall bind them and throw
them into the waters.
155. If a man has betrothed a bride to his son and
his son has not known her, and he has laid in her bosom,
and one has caught him, that man one shall bind and
cast him into the waters.
154. If a man has known his daughter, that man
one shall expel from the city.
158. If a man, after his father, has been caught in
the bosom of her that brought him up, who has borne
children, that man shall be cut from his father's house.
124 WIDOWS AND ORPHANS
The Law of Moses :
Lev. xx. ii et seq. If a man lieth with his father's wife
or daughter-in-law both of them shall be put to death.
14. If a man take a wife and her mother, they shall
be burnt with fire, both he and they.
17. If a man shall take his sister they shall be cut off.
20, 21. If a man shall lie with his uncle's wife, his
brother's wife, they shall be childless.
To Protect the Widow and the Fatherless.
172. If her husband did not give her a settlement,
one shall pay her her marriage portion, and from the
goods of her husband's house she shall take her share
like one son. If her sons worry her to leave the house,
the judge shall inquire into her reasons, and shall lay
the blame on the sons; that woman shall not go out
of her husband's house.
If that woman has set her face to leave, the settle-
ment which her husband gave her she shall leave to
her sons, the marriage portion from her father's house
she shall take, and she shall marry the husband of
her choice.
177. If a widow whose children are young has set
her face to enter into the house of another, without
consent of a judge, she shall not enter. When she
enters into the house of another, the judge shall inquire
into what is left of her former husband's house, and
RELIGION 125
the house of her former husband to her later husband,
and that woman he shall entrust and cause them to
receive a deed. They shall keep the house and rear
the little ones. Not a utensil shall they give for
money. The buyer that has bought a utensil of a
widow's sons shall lose his money, and shall return the
property to its owners.
Deut. xxiv. 17. " Thou shalt not wrest the judgment
of the stranger, nor of the fatherless, nor take the
widow's raiment for pledge."
Deut. xxvii. 19. " Cursed be he that wresteth the
judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow."
We cannot recall any law in the Old Testament
which is so definite on the question of justice to the
widow and the fatherless as the laws that were in force
in the days of Hammurabi.
Religion.
It is said that religion is absent from the Code of
Hammurabi, whereas it forms an important part in
the Laws of Moses. Two things can be said in reply
to that statement : (1) The Code of Hammurabi has
to do with the people as citizens ; it is a civil Code.
The letters of Hammurabi prove that the King was
intensely religious. The temples were honoured in-
stitutions in the land during his illustrious reign. It
126 SHAMASH
was the temple's duty to provide the ransom necessary
to procure the release from captivity of a native of
the town within whose walls it was situated. 32 . . .
If in his house there is no means for his ransom,
he shall be ransomed from the temple of his city ;
if in the temple of his city there is not means
for his ransom, his field, his garden, and his home
shall not be given for his ransom. (2) Babylonia had
its sacred books, and they fall into three classes. The
Babylonian Ceremonial Law is partly known to us
through religious texts, hymns, penitential psalms,
and magical texts and incantations. And they closely
resemble the Ceremonial Law of Israel in some things.
There are resemblances and differences between the
Code of Hammurabi and the Law of Moses.
The Code of Laws was not invented by the famous
King and presented to a grateful people. They were
codified customs. And their development cannot be
limited within a short period. The period must have
extended far behind Hammurabi. The laws developed
from customs, and a considerable length of time must
be allowed for any custom to become fixed and binding
on all the people. The laws contained the decisions of
the judges on special cases which were brought before
them.
Hammurabi is represented receiving the laws from
the seated sun-god Shamash, " the judge of heaven and
THE GOD OF ISRAEL 127
earth." The sun-god Shamash was the god of law, whose
children are called "Justice" and " Right." x Ham-
murabi himself takes credit for the laws, but addresses
the Babylonian god before and after the Code. " The
great gods have chosen me," he declares ; and again,
" I am Hammurabi, to whom Shamash has entrusted
judgment." He chooses it in a way which reminds
us strikingly of the last two chapters of the Book of
Deuteronomy ; blessings rich and plentiful are the
happy lot of those who keep his laws, but terrible
curses are heaped upon him who despises their
authority.2
Moses was Israel's lawgiver. The civil laws contain
many of the decisions of the judges; nevertheless, it
is asserted that Moses received the law on Mount
Sinai from God in the same way as Hammurabi re-
ceived his Code from Shamash. The reason why Sinai
was chosen was probably this : the Hebrews regarded
Sinai in the same light as the Greeks regarded Olympus.
" It was the Olympus of the Hebrew peoples, the
earthly seat of the Godhead, and as such it continued
to be regarded by the Israelites even after their settle-
ment in Palestine (Judg. v. 4, 5). This immemorial
sanctity of Sinai it was that led to its being selected
as the ideal scene of the giving of the Law, not con-
versely."3
1 Babel and Bible, p. 188.
2 The Interpreter, January, 1905, p. 56.
3 History of Israel and Judah, by Wellhausen, p. 20.
128 THEIR RELATION
What is the connection between the Laws of Moses
and the Code of Hammurabi ? On this question there
are differences of opinion. We have already seen
that while Israel was in Canaan the people learnt how
to make use of old Babylonian legends. And we shall
see later on that the Jewish Temple, its ritualism, etc.,
bore great resemblance to the Babylonian temples.
Literary resemblance exists between the Laws of Moses
and the Code of Hammurabi. Many of the laws are
the same ; the phraseology in places is very similar.
It is impossible to say at present how intimate is
the connection between them.
It is more than probable that the Laws of Moses, as
well as the institutions and customs, manifested those
elements which, on account of their vitality, received
strong acknowledgment after the nation had settled in
Canaan, and then were traced back to Moses as their
progenitor. And in order to increase the sacred character
of the laws, they were traced back to Jehovah Himself
as the chief Lawgiver. " Nobody asserts that the Ten
Commandments were borrowed, even partially, from
Babylonia; stress rather is laid on pointing out that
such commandments as the fifth, sixth, and seventh
owe their origin to an instinct of self-preservation
common to the human race."1 Mr. Johns regards the
Hebrew laws as an independent recension of ancient
custom, deeply influenced by Babylonian law.2
1 Babel and Bible, pp. 190, 191.
2 Hastings' Bible Dictionary ; extra volume, p. 612.
CHAPTER XV
THE TEMPLE AND THE TEMPLES
By the temple is meant the temple of Solomon, and
by the temples, those of Babylonia and Assyria. The
religious architecture of Babylonia and Assyria was
characterized by its hugeness. Clay was the material,
which was baked by the action of the sun or fire, and
could be easily moulded into any shape. The temples
were of conventional shape. The structure can be
traced back long before the days of Hammurabi. The
temples of Assyria were erected on the same architec-
tural plans as those of Babylonia. There was not the
same necessity for the Assyrians to use clay as building
material for their temples. The country was well
supplied with hard stones, which were very abundant
in the mountainous districts close to Assyria. These
suitable stones were used for statues, altars, and to
decorate the interior and exterior of their fine edifices.
The temples were solid but not beautiful, square as a
rule, with the four corners in the direction of the four
cardinal points. One noteworthy feature about the
Babylonian and Assyrian temples was their height.
129 9
130 ABODES OF DEITY
" Come, let us build a city and a tower that shall reach
up to heaven," are the ambitious words attributed to
the Babylonians and Assyrians in the Valley of Shinar
(Gen. xi. 4). The height of the temples was the pride
of both Kings and people. The temple was to be a
high place in a literal sense. Professor Jastrow thinks
that the Babylonian temples were intended to be
imitations of mountains.
" Each town of importance had its ' high place,' for
the Semites, like Indians and Persians, Greeks and
Romans, looked on mountains and hills as the favourite
abodes of deity. The very name of Mount Hermon
denotes its sacred reputation ; Mount Peor had its
Baal, or divine owner ; Carmel (1 Kings xvii. 19) and
the Mount of Olives (2 Sam. xv. 32 ; 1 Kings xi. 7)
were holy places. In an ancient song (Deut. xxxiii.
18 et seq.) Zebulon and Issachar ' call the peoples to the
mountain ' (possibly Tabor), that they may ' offer
sacrifices of righteousness. . . .' Now, Hebrew writers
were well aware that the Canaanites had recognized
the sanctity of these places before the advent of Israel,
and the Deuteronomist (xii. 2) urges this as a reason
for their destruction. For ages, however, they were
treated in a more conciliatory spirit. The belief arose
that they had been hallowed, not by local Baals, but
by Jehovah, who had manifested Himself there to His
favourite servants, the ancestors of the tribes. We
have a fine example in Gen. xxviii. 10-20 of the con-
HIGH PLACES 131
summate art with which an ancient superstition is
transfigured into a revelation of Israel's God. These
local worships, which it would have been hard, or rather
impossible, to eradicate at once, were made subservient
to a higher religion." l
The Babylonians associated the gods with the moun-
tains. " It was a natural association of ideas, accord-
ingly, that led the Babylonians to give to their temples
the form of the dwelling which they ascribed to their
gods. The temple, in so far as it was erected to serve
as a habitation for the god and a homage to him, was
to be the reproduction of the cosmic E-Kur, ' a moun-
tain house,' on a small scale, a miniature Kharsag-
Kurkura, the birthplace of the gods."2 Temples have
been discovered having names in which the idea of a
mountain is introduced. The name Zikkurat, or tower,
means a " high " edifice or " lofty peak." It was a
tower which resembled a mountain on a small scale.
The " high " edifice of the Babylonians conveyed the
same idea as that which led the Canaanites and Hebrews
to call their temples " high places."
The general plan of the temples was alike every-
where. There was the great court, open to the sky,
and surrounded by cloisters and colonnades. Here
were the houses of the priests and other ministers of
the temple, the library and school, shops for the
1 Hebrew Religion, by Addis.
3 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 613.
9—2
132 PLAN OF TEMPLES
manufacture and sale of votive objects, even the stalls
wherein the animals were kept which were intended for
sacrifice. In the centre of the court stood an altar
of sacrifice, with large vases for the purposes of ablution
by the side of it, as well as a sea or basin of water,
which derived its name from the fact that it was a
symbol of the primeval " deep." The purifying effects
of the water of the " deep " were transferred to that
of the mimic sea, and the worshipper who entered the
temple after washing in it became ceremonially clean.
The resemblances pointed out by Professor Sayce
between the temple and the temples are very striking.
In the building and restoration of temples and palaces
by Nebuchadnezzar II. we see an example which was
partially followed by Solomon, where the completion
of the buildings is followed by prayer uttered by the
King, and the same was done by the Israelitish King
(i Kings v.-viii.).
The temple of Solomon, like the Babylonian temples ,
had its two courts, its chambers for the priests, its
sanctuary, and its Holy of Holies. The temple and
the temples were externally mere rectangular boxes,
without architectural beauty or variety of design.
The temple of Solomon had no tower. They agreed
in their furniture. The two altars were in the Baby-
lonian temples and in the temple at Jerusalem. The
mercy-seat and the table of shew-bread were in the
temple and the temples. The bronze sea of Solomon,
PRIESTS 133
with its twelve oxen, had its model in Babylonia.
The twin pillars, known as Yakin and Boaz (1 Kings
vii. 21), that flanked the gateway of the court in
Solomon's temple, are paralleled by the two large
brick columns at the entrance to the Nippur Court, and
also in the temple at Eridu.
The palace of the Hebrew King adjoined the temple,
in which he claimed the right of offering sacrifice, and
so was the palace of Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon.
The bronze serpent which Hezekiah destroyed had
its image in the bronze serpents erected in the gates of
the Babylonian temples.
The internal decoration of the sanctuary was similar
in Babylonia and Jerusalem.
The well-known Hebrew ark was replaced in Baby-
lonia by a ship. The ship was dedicated to the god
or goddess whose image it contained, and was often of
considerable size. But in Assyria the ship developed
into an ark.
The temple and the temples were served by an army
of priests. The high-priest was the head of them, who
in the remote past performed the functions of a King
in Babylonia. The god delegated his powers to the
high-priest, and allowed him to exercise them on earth.
The priest was the medium through whom the deity
could be approached, and in the absence of the deity
the high-priest took his place. Professor Sayce points
out that a new term was needed to take the place of
134 PROPHETS AND SEERS
pate&i, which had a secular as well as a religious signifi-
cance. The new term was sangu, which, more especially
in the Assyrian period, meant a chief-priest. Every
great sanctuary had its chief-priests, who corresponded
to the Hebrew " sons of Aaron," with a high-priest, or
sangam-maku, at their head. Under them were a large
number of subordinate priests and temple ministers, the
sacrificers, the pourers of libations, and the anointers
with oil. There were bakers, chanters, wailers,
carriers of the axe and of the spear, soothsayers, etc.
The prophets of Israel and those of Babylonia and
Assyria had somewhat different functions. They
generally declared the will of Heaven to mankind ;
sometimes they predicted the future. The Babylonian
prophets accompanied the army in the field ; they
poured out libations ; they formed a class apart, " a
college of prophets." In this they resembled the pro-
phets of Israel.
The Babylonian seer was quite different from the
prophet. The distinction between the two was not
clearly defined in Israel. The Babylonian seer foretold
the future, which was made known to him through
visions and trances. Ashurbanipal narrates how be-
fore the Elamite War, after he had prayed for the aid
and protection of Ishtar, " a seer slept and dreamed
a prophetic dream ; a vision of the night did Ishtar
reveal unto him. He repeated it to me, saying :
' Ishtar, who dwelleth in Arbela, came down, and on
SACRIFICES 135
the right hand and on the left hung (her) quivers ; in
her hand she held the bow ; she drew the sharp war-
sword and held it before her. Like a mother she
speaketh with thee, she calleth thee ; Ishtar, the queen
of the gods, appointeth for thee a doom. . . . Eat food,
drink wine, make music, exalt my divinity, until I
march and the work of mine is accomplished. I will
give thee thy heart's desire ; thy face shall not grow
pale, thy feet shall not totter.' ' The main difference
between the prophet and the seer is the mode of
revelation. It was necessary that both should be
without bodily blemish.
The resemblance between the Babylonian prophet
and the Hebrew prophet is not clear. In Israel the
prophet and the priest were quite different ; there was
no such distinction in Babylonia. In Babylonia the
prophet, the magician, and the necromancer were
closely associated, whereas in Israel they were not.
Prophetesses, as well as priests, were employed in
the temple and in the temples. It was more so in
Babylonia than in Israel. It was a woman only who
had the privilege of entering the sacred shrine of Bel-
Merodach at Babylon ; unmarried women were conse-
crated to Ishtar, as well as to the Sun-god.
Sacrifices were offered in the temples. Goats and
kids, sheep and lambs, oxen and calves, fish, and some
kinds of birds, were among the sacrifices offered to the
gods.
136 RESEMBLANCES
The scapegoat was driven into the desert like the
Hebrew Azazel.
The gods demanded the first-fruits of what they had
given to man.
(It is natural to think of sacrifice as an offering to
the gods. Hesiod regards it as such in the well-known
line, " Gifts persuade the gods, gifts persuade august
kings.")
As to human sacrifice, Professor Sayce is of opinion
that it was practised in Babylonia and Assyria. " As
in Israel, so also in Babylonia and Assyria, human
sacrifice seems to have disappeared at an early age."
Tithe had its origin in Babylonia, and was rigorously
exacted for the support of the temples and priests ; and
so it was in Israel.
There are similarities and differences between the
Levitical law and the Babylonian ritual. The Hebrew
tordh was derived from the Babylonian tertu. The
technical words of the Mosaic law recur in the ritual
texts of early Babylonia. The Old Testament word
kipper, " atonement," is the Assyrian kuppuru, and
the word korban, " gift " or " benevolence," was the
same as the Assyrian word gurbannu.
We wish to point out the resemblances between the
ritual of the temples and the temple.1
A large number of expressions relating to sacrifice
were common to both the temples and the temple.
1 See " Ritual " in Encyclopedia Biblica,
NATURE OF SACRIFICES 137
In bloody sacrifices the same species of animals were
employed, such as ox, sheep, goat. Preference was
given to animals of a year old ; sacrifices of a more
advanced age were rare. Female animals were used
in the temples for purifications, whereas in the temple
they were used for sin offerings (Num. xv. 27).
The offering of defective animals was allowed in the
temples for purposes of augury, but in the temple for
free-will offerings (Lev. xxii. 23). Generally speaking,
the temples and the temple required the victim to be
without blemish.
As in the temples, the sattukku — i.e., the regular and
obligatory sacrifice — was at the root of the ritual, and
so it was in the temple (in the Priestly Code and more
so in Ezekiel) ; the tamld, the regular daily offering,
was made statutory, and was the centre of the whole
divine service.
Unbloody sacrifices, which were systematically used
in the temples, were composed of various materials,
such as wine, water, oil; but their employment in the
temple was only exceptional. The incense offering
was unknown in the temple in the age of early Israel.
It is denounced by Jeremiah (vi. 20) as a modern and
outlandish innovation. The unknown author of
Isaiah lxv. 3 names Babylon as the land in which
sacrifices are offered in gardens and incense offered upon
bricks. The incense offering of the temple after the Exile
may have been borrowed from the temples of Babylonia.
138 THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEA
There are striking points of difference between the
ritual of the temples and the temple.
In the vegetable offerings of the temple only those
products are mentioned which are the results of trouble
and work, which represent a right of private property.
Honey, cream, milk, and fruit occur often as offerings
in the temples, but never among those of the temple.
The wine libation is no longer an independent offering
in the Priestly Code, and in Ezekiel it is prohibited
altogether. It may have been prohibited on account
of abuses connected with it (i Sam. i. 14). As regards
bloody sacrifices, offerings of fish and game, such as
geese, peacocks, and pheasants, were excluded from
the temple ritual. Fish and game belong to Yahwe,
and thus were not appropriated as sacrificial gifts. The
fish and game offerings are frequently mentioned on
the Babylonian and Assyrian tablets as being in great
favour in the temples.
The fundamental idea underlying sacrifice is not the
same in the temple and the temples. The Hebrew
sacrifice in its older form gave a special development
to the idea of a sacral communion between God and
the worshipper as represented in the act of offering;
the cultus of the temples presents no trace of this. All
the more prominent is the conception of the purifica-
tory and propitiatory character of sacrifice which comes
into the foreground in the Priestly Code and Ezekiel,
which is conspicuous in the cultus of the Babylonian
CIRCUMCISION 139
temples. We may assume that the sin and trespass
offering of the Hebrew torah, although all that we
know of their technique is wholly of post-exilic date,
were entirely of Israelitish growth.
In the ritual of the prophets instructions were given
for the sacrifice of a lamb at the gate of the house ;
the blood is to be smeared on the lintels and door-
posts, as well as on the huge images that guarded
the entrance. The same practice is still in vogue in
Egypt-
Circumcision was not universal among the Semites,
for it does not seem that the Assyrians practised it ; but,
still, it was common to several Semitic races, as appears
from Jeremiah (ix. 25, 26, R.V.), which is the classical
passage on the subject. It was also in vogue among
some of the non- Semitic races, notably the Egyptians.
The Hebrew ceremony, however, deviated from the
primitive form in the matter of age, and the Bedouin,
who circumcise boys, not infants, are nearer the
original idea, for the Arabic verb meaning to cir-
cumcise signifies in Hebrew to contract affinity by
marriage. The origin of the rite among the Hebrews
is obscure, and as to its original meaning very diver-
gent views have been held, which we need not enter
into here.1
1 " Circumcision " in Encyclopedia Biblica ; The Early History
of the Hebrews, by Sayce, p. 31 et seq.; Hebrew Religion, by
Addis, p. 43 et seq.
140 FASTS AND FEASTS
" The tabernacle of the congregation " or " tent of
meeting " was of Babylonian origin.
A number of the festivals of the calendar, and the
dates on which they were held in Israel, came from
Babylonia.
The three great feasts of the Babylonian agricul-
turist resembled those of Israel, and these are sup-
plemented by other feasts by the Israelites and the
Babylonians.
Fasts and fast days, as well as feasts, were common in
Babylonia, and so they were in Israel. In the Baby-
lonian penitential psalms fasting is often alluded to.
"It is impossible not to be struck," as Professor
Sayce remarks, " by the many points of similarity
between the Babylonian ritual and arrangements of
the temples and that which existed among the Israel-
ites. The temple of Solomon, in fact, was little more
than a reproduction of the Babylonian sanctuary." l
1 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, p. 470.
CHAPTER XVI
devotional literature1
Hymns.
That many of the hymns preserved in Ashurbanipal's
library are in a fragmentary state is most unfortunate.
Consequently nothing more than the general contents
can be obtained. The circumstances in which the
hymns were composed are unknown to us for that
reason. No date can be assigned to any of the hymns
except it can be based upon internal evidence. A
collection of hymns was made at different times. For
instance, a collection of hymns addressed to Shamash
has been found, and several hymns addressed to
Marduk have been preserved. Hymns were composed
for special occasions, addressed to the great gods of
Babylonia ; but all of them were not composed in
this way. Some bear internal evidence of being merely
sporadic productions, composed for other purposes
than that of being placed in a ritual.
The hymns addressed to Shamash are the best
that have been yet published. The two principles
1 See Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by J astro w, pp. 253-406.
141
142 PRAYERS
that run through these hymns are justice and
righteousness.
Here is one :l
" O Sun-God in the midst2 of heaven at thy setting,
May the enclosure of the pure heaven greet thee ;3
May the gate of heaven approach thee ;
May the directing god, the messenger who loves thee, direct thy
way.
In E-babbara, the seat of thy sovereignty, thy supremacy rises
like the dawn.
May A, the wife whom thou lovest, come before thee with joy ;
May thy heart be at rest ;4
May the glory of thy divinity be established for thee.
O Shamash ! warrior hero, may thou be exalted ;
O lord of E-babbara, as thou marchest, may thy course be directed :
Direct thy path, march along the path fixed for thy course (?).
0 Shamash ! judge of the world, director of its laws art thou."
Prayers.
Prayers were used when festivals were celebrated in
honour of the deities, when temples or sacred statues
were dedicated to the gods, or on secular occasions, such
as the completion of the building of a canal. Gudea
(about 3000-2800 B.C.), after finishing a statue to his
god Nin-girsu, offered the following simple and earnest
prayer :
" O King, whose great strength the land cannot endure ;
Nin-girsu ! grant to Gudea, who has built this house, a good fate !"
1 See Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Jastrow, p. 302.
2 It may be "horizon." 3 " May it speak to thee of peace."
* " May thy anger depart."
TO MERODACH 143
All the statues of Gudea have the hands folded on
the breast, in the manner of Oriental servants awaiting
orders, a token of the King's continual worship and
service. So we are told (2 Sam. vii. 18) that David
went in and sat before the Lord.
The prayers of Nebuchadnezzar are very impressive
and remarkable for their elevation of thought and
felicity of diction. His inscriptions are characterized
by the prayer with which they invariably close.
Whether he is building a canal, improving the walls of
Babylon, erecting or repairing a temple, he always adds
to the description of the achievements a prayer to some
god, in which he asks for divine grace and the blessings
of long life and prosperity.1
" To Merodach, my lord, I prayed, I lifted up my
hands. Merodach, lord, wisest of the gods, glorious
prince ! Thou it was who madest me, and with the
sovereignty of all mankind didst invest me ! Like
dear life I love thy lofty image ; above thine own city,
Babylon, I have adorned no town in any place. Like
as I love the fear of thy godhead, (and) regard the
lordship, favour thou the lifting up of my hands ;
hear my prayer ! I am the patron King that rejoiceth
thine heart ; the prudent minister, the patron of all
thy cities. By thy command, O merciful Merodach !
may the house that I have built endure for ever !
may I satisfied be with the fullness of it ; and therein
1 Light from the East, by Ball, p. 204.
144 PRAYERS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
may I come to grey hairs, and be satisfied with chil-
dren ! May I receive therein the rich tribute of the
kings of the regions of all mankind ! from horizon to
zenith — the places of the rising sun — may I own no
enemy, have none to make me afraid ! Let my off-
spring therein rule the black-headed fold for evermore !"
The prayers present many striking parallels to the
phraseology of the Old Testament.
Curses were expressed in the form of prayers.
Among the prayers, as well as the hymns, discovered
on the tablets, some are loftier in spirit than others ;
they contain a higher level of religious thought, and
more pronounced ethical tendencies.
The offering of praise to the gods, whether it was for
victory granted or for a favour shown, called forth the
best and purest sentiments of which the individual
was capable. In this we see traits of the human aspects
of religion. The affections of the petitioner are be-
trayed in the petition he offers to the deities. We
perceive the attributes that reflect the worshipper's
disposition rather than the god's view of the purpose
and aim of existence.1
Penitential Psalms.
By the penitential psalms is meant those where a
great strain is laid upon pacifying the god addressed.
1 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Jastrow, p. 298.
PENITENTIAL PSALMS 145
It was based upon the primitive belief that misfortunes
were the result of divine wrath. The Babylonians
believed that transgressions could be atoned for only
by appeasing the anger of the god. But with this
rigid creed a lofty and a comparatively pure ethical
spirit was cherished among the Babylonians. Incan-
tation formulae were resorted to by the sufferer when
followed by bad fortune or smitten with disease. Not
only did he adopt that course, but he turned in prayer
to the particular god who sent the evil, and appealed
that his wrath should turn away.
Such events as defeat in war were ascribed to divine
wrath. The personal tone contained in most of the
penitential psalms makes them appropriate to circum-
stances in which the individual was involved as well
as the nation. And so the psalms came to possess a
national importance.
As the belief was prevalent that weal or woe depended
upon the relationship between man and god, what was
conceived and explained as the anger of the god
prompted the individual and the nation to a greater
consecration and zeal in securing the love of the god.
The element of love is introduced explicitly, or is
clearly implied, so as to form the necessary complement
to the conception of the divine wrath.
The penitential psalms manifest the ethical and
religious beliefs of the Babylonians at their best. No-
where is the ethical side more clearly shown than in
10
146 GOD'S ANGER
the idea of sin expressed in them. Such misfortunes
of life which could not be attributed to the presence
of evil spirits, but rather to the wrath of the god,
brought a deep sense of guilt to the individual. And
the Babylonian believed that, consciously or uncon-
sciously, he must have transgressed against the god.
This fact reminds us of the theology of Job's comforters
and many of the Psalms.
As to whether the god was really justified in being
angry did not seem to have troubled the Babylonians,
or whether the punishment inflicted on them was in
proportion to the wrong done did not seem to have
perplexed them. To the Babylonian it was not essen-
tial that the deity should be just though he was
offended ; it was quite enough that the god was offended
through the omission of certain rites, or through a mis-
take in the performance of rites, or something else.
To the penitent two things stood out distinctly : the
wrath of the god and the duty of appeasing that wrath.
It cannot be said that the Babylonian and Assyrian
people got beyond this conception, but this conviction
was quite sufficient to convince them that their mis-
fortunes were caused by some offence. The evils
which overtook the individual sufficed to convince him
that he had sinned against the god. It was within this
range of thoughts the penitential psalms of the Baby-
lonians moved and had their being.
It brings to memory the Hebrew conception of sin —
SIMILARITY 147
that it is a " missing of the mark," having missed in
some way, knowingly or unknowingly, to comply with
the commands of the god under whose protection one
lived. Some sharp awakenings brought home to him
the startling conviction that he had " missed the mark."
Disease, misfortune, defeat, drought, deluge, storms,
destruction, financial losses, discord in the home, death,
were some of the messengers that told the individual
or the nation that the favour of the deity had been
forfeited and that it should be secured again. At the
same time, we must admit that within this somewhat
narrow circle there was room for ethical progress,
and some of the penitential psalms of the Babylonians
are in tone and substance worthy to be compared with
the Psalms of the Old Testament ; and the Book of
Job and other portions of the Old Testament could be
read with edification in the light of the ideas contained
in the Babylonian psalms, which are the flowers of the
Babylonian religious literature.
The Babylonian psalms, as well as the Hebrew
Psalms, have one similarity common to both : more
advanced conception, so far from setting aside primi-
tive ones, can live and thrive in the same atmosphere
with the old. It may be more so in the Babylonian
psalms.
The Assyrians adopted these psalms as they did the
other features of the religious literature of the Baby-
lonians, and enriched the collection by productions of
10 — 2
148 THE PENITENT
their own, which, however, follow closely the Baby-
lonian type.1
Here is a psalm where the penitent addresses his
goddess :
" I, thy servant, full of sighs, call upon thee ;
The fervent prayer of him who has sinned do thou accept.
If thou lookest upon a man, that man lives.
0 all-powerful mistress of mankind,
Merciful one, to whom it is good to turn, who hears sighs !"
The priest intercedes on his behalf :
" His god and goddess being angry with him, he calls upon thee :
Turn towards him thy countenance, take hold of his hand."
It was difficult sometimes to know whether the sinner
had offended against a god, a goddess, or against
several gods. Sometimes the sinner could only guess
wherein his offence consisted, because it was some mis-
fortune that brought home to him his sense of guilt.
No particular god in many cases could be specified.
" O that the wrath of my lord's heart return to its former condition !
O that the god who is unknown be pacified !
O that the goddess unknown be pacified !
O that the god known or unknown be pacified !
O that the goddess known or unknown be pacified !
O that the heart of my god be pacified !
O that the god or goddess known or unknown be pacified !
The sin that I have committed I know not."
Fasting is resorted to by way of penance :
" Food I have not eaten ;
Clear water I have not drunk.
1 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Jastrow, p. 317.
A PRAYER TO ISHTAR 149
The sinner describes his wretched state :
" Instead of food, I eat bitter tears ;
Instead of date-wine, I drink the waters of misery ;
For my drink I have bitter waters ;
Instead of clothes, I am enveloped in sin."1
A Prayer to Ishtar.
Mr. L. W. King says that the text of this prayer to
Ishtar, both from the beauty of its language and from
its perfect state of preservation, is one of the finest
Babylonian religious compositions that has yet been
recovered. The prayer is addressed to Ishtar in her
exalted position as the goddess of battle, and she is
identified here as Irnini (i. 105), and she is addressed
(i. 12) as Gutira. Mr. King says that in the course
of time Ishtar was identified by the Babylonians
and Assyrians with other goddesses, and when so
identified she absorbed their names, titles, and
attributes.
The prayer may be divided as follows : Lines 1-41,
a description of the power and splendour of the goddess.
From line 42 onward the suppliant expresses his per-
sonal petitions, describing his state of affliction and
praying for deliverance. Lines 107 and following
contain a rubric and directions for the performance of
certain ceremonies and for the due recital of the
prayer.
1 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Jastrow, p. 322.
150 HER ATTRIBUTES
We can only give a selection from this unique prayer ;
we must refer the reader to Mr King's translation for a
complete version of it.1
We find it extremely difficult to make a selection.
1. I pray unto thee, lady of ladies, goddess of goddesses !
2. O Ishtar, queen of all peoples, directress of mankind !
3. O Irnini, thou art raised on high, mistress of the spirits of
heaven ;
4. Thou art mighty, thou hast sovereign power, exalted is thy
name!
5. Thou art the light ot heaven and earth, O valiant daughter of
the Moon-God.
* * * * *
13. Thou wieldest the sceptre and the decision, the control of
earth and heaven !
(The idea is that " the sceptre" represents the control
of earth and " the decision " that of heaven.)
18. Anu, Bel, and Ea have raised thee on high ; among the gods
have they made great thy dominion.
19. They have exalted thee among all the Spirits of heaven ; they
have made thy rank pre-eminent.
20. At the thought of thy name the heaven and the earth quake,
21. The gods tremble, and the spirits of the earth falter.
22. Mankind payeth homage unto thy mighty name,
23. For thou art great, and thou art exalted.
* * * * *
25. Thou judgest the cause of man with justice and righteousness ;
26. Thou lookest with mercy on the violent man, and thou settest
right the unruly every morning.
*****
1 The Seven Tablets of Creation, edited by L. W. King, p. 223
et seq.
HER INFLUENCE 151
31. O thou glorious one, that ragest among the spirits of heaven,
that subduest angry gods,
32. That hast power over all princes, that controllest the sceptre
of kings,
33. That openest the bonds of all handmaids,
34. That art raised on high, that art firmly established — O valiant
Ishtar, great is thy might !
35. Bright torch of heaven and earth, light of all dwellings,
36. Terrible in the fight, one who cannot be opposed, strong in the
battle !
37. O whirlwind, that roarest against the foe and cuttest off the
mighty !
38. O furious Ishtar, summoner of armies !
40. Where thou lookest in pity the dead man lives again, the sick
is healed ;
41. The afflicted is saved from his affliction when he beholdeth
thy face !
42. I, thy servant, sorrowful, sighing, and in distress, cry unto
thee.
43. Look unto me, O my lady, and accept my supplication ;
44. Truly pity me, and hearken unto my prayer !
45. Cry unto me, " It is enough !" and let thy spirit be appeased !
52. Is anger mercy ? Then let thy spirit be appeased !
53. May thine eyes rest with favour upon me ;
54. With thy glorious regard truly in mercy look upon me !
55. Put an end to the evil bewitchments of my body ; let me behold
thy clear light !
63. My heart hath taken wing, and hath flown away like a bird of
the heavens ;
64. I moan like a dove, night and day.
65. I am made desolate, and I weep bitterly ;
66. With grief and woe my spirit is distressed.
67. What have I done, O my god and my goddess ?
152 SUPPLICATIONS
68. Is it because I feared not my god or my goddess that trouble
hath befallen me ?
71. I have beheld, O my lady, days of affliction, months of sorrow,
years of misfortune ;
73. I have beheld, O my lady, slaughter, turmoil, and rebellion.
74. Death and misery have made an end of me !
75. My need is grievous, grievous is my humiliation ;
76. Over my house, my gate, and my fields is affliction poured
forth.
81. Dissolve my sin, my iniquity, my transgression, and my offence !
82. Forgive my transgression, accept my supplication !
83. Secure my deliverance, and let me be loved and carefully
tended !
84. Guide my footsteps in the light, that among men I may
gloriously seek my way !
88. Thou art the ruler : let, then, my torch flame forth !
89. May my scattered strength be collected !
90. May the fold be wide, and may my pen be bolted fast !
91. Receive the abasement of my countenance, give ear unto my
prayer ;
92. Truly pity me, and [accept my supplication] !
93. How long, O my lady, wilt thou be angry and thy face be turned
away?
94. How long, O my lady, wilt thou rage and thy spirit be full
of wrath ?
95. Incline thy neck, which [is turned] away from my affairs, and
set prosperity before my face ;
96. As by the solving waters of the river, may thine anger be
dissolved !
97. My mighty foes may I trample like the ground ;
98. And those who are wroth with me mayest thou force into sub-
mission and crush beneath my feet !
99. Let my prayer and my supplication come unto thee,
ISHTAR EXALTED 153
100. And let thy great mercy be upon me,
101. That those who behold me in the street may magnify thy
name,
102. And that I may glorify thy godhead and thy might before
mankind !
103. Ishtar is exalted ! Ishtar is queen !
104. My lady is exalted ! My lady is queen !
105. Irnini, the valiant daughter of the Moon-God, hath not a rival !
*****
The prayer of Ishtar strikes us as being very similar
to some of the best sentiments expressed in the Old
Testament, and we cannot help thinking that the
devotional literature of the Babylonians and Assyrians
was known to the Hebrews.
Dr. R. W. Rogers, in his recent book,1 gives a few
striking passages from the Old Testament in order to
show the influence that the Babylonian Creation Story
exerted over the poets and prophets of Israel :
" O Jehovah, God of hosts,
Who is a mighty one, like unto Thee, O Jehovah ?
And Thy faithfulness is round about Thee.
Thou rulest the pride of the sea :
When the waves thereof arise, Thou stillest them.
Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain ;
Thou hast scattered Thine enemies with the arm of Thy strength.
The heavens are Thine, the earth also is Thine :
The world and the fullness thereof, Thou hast founded them.
The north and the south, Thou hast created them."
Ps. lxxxix. 8-12.
1 The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria^ pp. 133-137.
154 RAHAB
" This poet has heard of Tiamat and her story. Here
Tiamat is called Rahab, and it is not Marduk, but
Jehovah, who has slain her. Just as the elder Bel, or
Ellil, was displaced, as we have seen, by Marduk, so
here Marduk is displaced by Jehovah. He has ' broken
Rahab in pieces.' Nay, more : He has scattered His
enemies — that is, the helpers of Rahab. And then,
then, after He has defeated Rahab, He creates the
world. It is certainly the Babylonian Tiamat and
Marduk story which this poet has in his mind and is
using poetically to glorify Jehovah. And, be it ob-
served, he is following exactly the same order of pro-
gression as we have just seen in the Babylonian story —
first the conflict, then the creation."
The poet who wrote the Book of Job was influenced
by the Babylonian myths, which he utilized to describe
the mighty works of Jehovah :
" He stirreth up the sea with His power,
And by His understanding He smiteth through Rahab.
By His Spirit the heavens are garnished ;
His hand hath pierced the swift serpent."
Job xxvi. 12, 13.
" God will not withdraw His anger ;
The helpers of Rahab do stoop under Him."
Job ix. 13.
Amos's passing allusion to them shows that he was
influenced by these legends. In describing the im-
potence of the sinners to escape, the prophet says :
LEVIATHAN 155
" Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will
search and take them out thence ; and though they be hid from
My sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the
serpent,1 and it shall bite them." — Amos ix. 3.
" And in a fine passage in the Psalter leviathan is
plainly enough the figure of Tiamat ":
" Yet God is my King of old,
Working salvation in the midst of the earth.
Thou didst divide the sea by Thy strength :
Thou breakest the heads of the sea-monsters in the waters.
Thou breakest the heads of leviathan in pieces ;
Thou gavest him to be food to the people inhabiting the wilder-
ness.
Thou didst cleave fountain and flood :
Thou driedst up mighty rivers.
The day is Thine, the night also is Thine :
Thou hast prepared the light and the sun.
Thou hast set all the borders of the earth :
Thou hast made summer and winter."
Ps. lxxiv. 12-17.
" Here is proof enough that these Babylonian myths
were in current circulation in Israel, and that poets
and prophets knew how to adorn their message with
them."
1 The serpent means Rahab.
CHAPTER XVII
THE INSCRIPTIONS AND HIGHER CRITICISM
What are the effects of the discoveries which have been
made in Babylonia and Assyria upon the results of
Biblical criticism ? What bearing has the one upon
the other ? The inscriptions may have two kinds of
testimonies : a direct testimony and an indirect testi-
mony. The direct testimony is decisive ; the value of
the indirect testimony depends on whether it is suffi-
ciently circumstantial and precise to make the settle-
ment of a certain question highly probable. To quote
Dr. Driver :x " Examples of the direct testimony of
archaeology have been furnished by the Books of Kings,
though, as it happens, these have related mostly to
points on which there has been no controversy, and on
which the Biblical statements have not been ques-
tioned. It would be an example of the second kind of
archaeological testimony if, to take an imaginary case,
the Book of Genesis had described the patriarchs as
visiting various places inhabited by tribes to which
there were no references in later books of the Old
1 Authority and Archceology, pp. 144, 145.
156
METHODS UNSCIENTIFIC 157
Testament, but which the evidence of the monuments
had now shown to be correctly located ; under such
circumstances the agreement with the facts would be
strong evidence that the narrator drew his information
from trustworthy sources. In cases of the third kind
of archaeological testimony, if its value is to be estimated
aright, attention must be paid to the circumstances of
the individual case. ... In the abstract, again, there
is no reason why Hebrew names of a particular type
should not have been formed at an early period ; but
if an induction from materials supplied by the Old
Testament itself renders the fact doubtful, the circum-
stances that other Semitic nations framed names of this
kind at an early period does not prove that the Hebrews
did the same.
" The methods of Sayce and Hommel are impossible
and unscientific. We cannot conclude that, because
the Egyptians and the Babylonians and the Canaanites
were civilized, and knew how to write and the like, the
Hebrews, therefore, did the same. We cannot estimate
the civilization of the rude Saxons when they con-
quered Britain by our knowledge of the Britons whom
they conquered. The Saxons drove out the Britons,
accepting from them neither their civilization nor their
religion. In this period succeeding their conquest of
civilized Britain we know that the Saxons were un-
lettered heathen, although the country which they had
conquered was both civilized and Christian. What
158 CRITICISM NOT DISPROVED
both have done is this : Professor Sayce, in The Early
History of the Hebrews, has tried to carry back into
remote antiquity the history and religion of Israel.
Both have drawn a picture of primitive civilization of
Babylonia, Egypt, and Arabia, as we know it from the
monuments, and have urged that, since these countries
with which Israel came into contact had reached a
considerable degree of civilization at the time of Moses,
therefore, of necessity, Israel had done the same. They
have made much use of the revelation of the Tel-el-
Amarna tablets in regard to the revelation of Palestine
before the entrance of the Israelites. If the country
which the Israelites conquered possessed a high
civilization ; if the land out of which the Israelites
came — namely, Egypt — possessed a high civilization ;
if the land with which Israel was connected — namely,
Babylonia and Arabia — possessed a high civilization,
then the Hebrews must have been civilized, capable of
producing codes of law, . . . and a religion already highly
developed at the time that they entered Canaan."
Professor Sayce and Dr. Hommel1 have maintained
that the inscriptions have disproved many of the con-
clusions of the critics. What has struck us is the
practical agreement that exists between Professor
Sayce and a Biblical critic like Dr. Driver. We fail
to see that there is any real difference between the two
eminent scholars with regard to the historical value of
1 Ancient Hebrew Tradition illustrated by the Monuments.
ADMISSIONS 159
the Old Testament. Professor Sayce believes that our
knowledge of Babylonia goes back to " eight or nine
thousand years ago,"1 an opinion which cannot be
harmonized with the chronology of the Old Testament.
' The consistent exaggeration of numbers on the part
of the Chronicler shows us from a historical point of
view his unsupported statements must be received
with caution. ... He cared as little for history in the
modern European sense of the word as the Oriental of
to-day, who considers himself at liberty to embellish
or modify the narrative he is repeating in accordance
with his fancy or the moral he wishes to draw from it.2
. . . The account [of the conquest of Babylon] given by
the Book of Daniel is at variance with the testimony of
the inscriptions. . . . Darius the Mede is, in fact, a re-
flection into the past of Darius, the son of Hystaspes. . . .
The same monumental evidence which has vindicated
the historical accuracy of the Scriptural narrative in
other places has here pronounced against it. The story
of Belshazzar's fall is not historical in the modern sense
of the word ' history.' " 3
" Professor Sayce, it is to be observed, though he
comes forward ostensibly as an enemy of criticism,
nevertheless makes admissions which show that he
recognizes many of its conclusions to be true. Thus he
1 Religion of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, p. 260.
2 Higher Criticism and the Monuments, p. 464.
3 Ibid., pp. 526, 528, 531.
160 TWO ABRAHAMS
not only asserts the compilatory character of the
Pentateuch (Early History of the Hebrews, pp. 129,
I34> 203), but in Genesis he finds (p. 132 et seq.) two
groups of narratives and ' two Abrahams ' — the one ' an
Abraham born in one of the centres of Babylonian
civilization, who is an ally of Amorite chieftains, and
whom the Hittites of Hebron address as a " mighty
prince " ' (the Abraham of Gen. xiv. and of P) ; the
other ' an Abraham of the Bedawin camp-fire, a nomad
whose habits are those of the rude independence of the
desert, whose wife kneads the bread, while he himself
kills the calf with which his guests are entertained '
(the Abraham of J and E). The former narrative
he considers, though upon very questionable grounds,
to have been based upon contemporary documents ;
the latter to have been ' like the tales of their old heroes
recounted by the nomad Arabs in the days before
Islam as they sat at night round their camp-fires.
The details and spirit of the story have necessarily
caught the colour of the medium through which they
have passed ' (p. 62) . All the principal details of
the patriarchs' lives are contained in J and E ; but if
these narratives were handed down for generations by
' nomad reciters ' round their camp-fires, what better
guarantee of their historical truth do we possess than
if their memory had been preserved in the manner
supposed above I"1
1 Genesis, by Driver , p. li.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 161
It is astonishing how Professor Sayce agrees with
the views of the Higher Critics, but it is more wonderful
how he condemns them I1 The conservative theo-
logians welcome Dr. Sayce as " Daniel come to judg-
ment," but after reading his works carefully they must
see that he gives as much satisfaction as Portia gave
to Shylock.2
No inscriptions have proved that Moses wrote the
whole of the Pentateuch as it is in the Bible, or
that the story of Balaam is literally true, or that
Isaiah wrote the whole of the book that goes by that
name.
" That a story accurately reflects geography does
not necessarily mean that it is a real transcript of
history — else were the Book of Judith the truest man
ever wrote, instead of being what it is, a pretty piece
of fiction. Many legends are wonderful photographs
of scenery. And, therefore, let us at once admit that,
while we may have other reasons for the historical
truth of the patriarchal narratives, we cannot prove
this on the ground that their itineraries and place-
names are correct. Or, again, that the Book of Joshua,
in marking tribal boundaries, gave us a detailed list
of towns, the most of which we are able to identify,
does not prove anything about the date or authorship
of these lists, nor the fact of the deliberate partition
1 See Monumental Facts and Higher Criticism Fancies.
3 TJie New World, March, 1899, p. 30.
II
i62 THE CAVE OF MACHPELAH
of the land in Joshua's time. Again, that Israel's
conquests under Moses on the east of the Jordan went
so far north as described, is not proved by the dis-
covery in these days of the various towns mentioned.
In each of these cases all that is proved is that the
narrative was written in the land by someone who
knew the land, and this has never been called in
question. The date, the accuracy of the narrative,
will have to be discussed on other grounds."1
The fact that the inscriptions throw light upon other
ancient nations does not prove the history of Israel.
Professor Sayce says : " I have long since pointed out
that the details of the purchase of the cave of Machpelah.
by Abraham are in strict conformity with the require-
ments of Babylonian commercial law as it was ad-
ministered in the Abrahamic age. . . . The law which
lies behind the narratives of Genesis is the law, not of
Moses, but of Khammurabi. Thus the action of Sarah
in giving Hagar to Abraham and of Rachel in giving
Bilhah to Jacob when they themselves were childless
was in strict accordance with the Babylonian code."2
It is true that Hammurabi's code of laws was nine
hundred years older than Moses', and was in force for
ages after the death of Moses, but nothing is said on
the tablets about Abraham purchasing the cave of
Machpelah. Sarah may have given Hagar to Abra-
1 G. A. Smith's Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 108.
2 Monumental Facts and Higher Criticism Fancies, p. 80.
JOSEPH'S NARRATIVES 163
ham, and Rachel may have given Bilhah to Jacob, but
the inscriptions have no record of the events.
" The argument which has been advanced to show
that the narrative of the purchase of the grave of
Machpelah (Gen. xxiii.) is the work of a contemporary
hand breaks down completely. The expressions
alleged in proof of the assertion are not confined to
the age of Hammurabi ; they one and all occur, in
some cases repeatedly, in the period of the Kings, and
even later : they consequently furnish no evidence
that the narrative was written at any earlier date.
There is no antecedent reason why Abraham should
not have purchased a plot of ground near Hebron from
the native inhabitants of the place ; but to suppose
that this is proven, or even made probable, by archae-
ology, is simply to misinterpret the evidence which
it furnishes. As regards the Joseph narratives, it is
undeniable that they have an Egyptian colouring; they
contain many allusions to Egyptian usages and insti-
tutions, which can be illustrated from the Egyptian
monuments. Moreover, as Kittel has pointed out,
this colouring is common to both J and E. As it is
improbable that two writers would have added it
independently, it may be inferred that it was inherent
in the common tradition which both represent. This
is a circumstance tending to show that in its origin
the Egyptian element was considerably anterior to
either J or E, and increases the probability that it
11 — 2
164 GENERAL TERMS
rests ultimately upon a foundation in fact. On the
other hand, the extent of the Egyptian colouring of
these narratives must not be overestimated, nor must
the conclusions drawn from it be exaggerated. The
allusions are not of a kind to prove close and personal
cognizance of the facts described : institutions, officials,
etc., are described in general terms, not by their specific
Egyptian names. Egypt, it must be remembered, was
not far distant from Canaan, and, as the prophecies of
Isaiah, for instance, show, there was frequent inter-
course between the two countries during the monarchy.
Isaiah, in the single chapter (xix.) which he devotes
to Egypt, shows considerable acquaintance with the
peculiarities of the country. It is a complete illusion
to suppose that the Joseph narratives can be shown
by archaeology to be contemporary with the events
recorded (notice in this connection the absence of
particulars in the narrative which a contemporary
would almost naturally mention, such as the personal
name of the Pharaoh, and the place in Egypt at which
he held his Court : the names Potiphar, etc., can
hardly be genuine ancient names) or translated from a
hieratic papyrus. The statement1 that the Egypt
which these narratives bring before us is in particular
that of the Hyksos age is destitute of foundation."2
"It is highly probable that the critics who doubt
1 Sayce's The Early History of the Hebrews, p. 90 ; cf. p. 93.
3 Driver's Genesis, p. 1 et seq.
BOTH ARE HANDMAIDS 165
the presence of any historical basis for the narratives
of the patriarchs are ultra-sceptical ; but their scepti-
cism cannot, at least at present, be refuted by the testi-
mony of the monuments."1
" A great deal of the illustration afforded by the
monuments relates to facts of language, to ideas,
institutions, and localities ; but these, as a rule, are of
a permanent nature, and, until they can be proved to
be limited to a particular age, their occurrence or
mention in a given narrative is not evidence that it
possesses the value of contemporary testimony."2
The inscriptions are not at enmity with Higher
Criticism, nor is Higher Criticism jealous of Archaeology.
The best feeling exists between them and the Old
Testament. Both are handmaids working together in
their search after truth.
1 Authority and Archceology^ Edited by Driver, p. 150.
2 Ibid., p. 151.
GENERAL INDEX
Aaron, 86
Ashurnasirpal, 15, 26, 58
" Aaron, son of," 134
Asia, 105
Ablution, 132
Asnath, 102
Abraham, 71, 83, 85, 86, 98, 99,
Asshur, 74
160
Assyria, 2, 8, 10, 13, 14, 20, 22,
Abrahamic age, 162
75, 81, 88, 104, 119
Absalom, 88
Assyrian power, 15
" Abyss," 39
Assyrians, 2, 10, 72, 88
Adam, 53
Assyriologists, 34
Adapa, 26, 52, 53
Astronomy, 22
Adultery, 123
"Atonement," 136
Agade, 17
Atrahasis, 27, 62 .
Agent, 118
Azazel, 136
Agriculture, 112
Ahab, 104
Baals, 130
Ahaz, 105
Babel, 90
Akkadians, 12
Tower of, 90
Altar, 132
Babylon, 14, 17, 47, 74
Amenhotep IV., 101
culture of, 15
Ammizaguga, 67
First Dynasty of, 76, 78
Amraphel, 98
Babylonia, 2, 8, 10, 13, 14, 20,
Angels, 58
22, 27, 81, 88, 109, 119
Animals, 46
civilization in, 49, 80
Annunaki, 47, 64
languages of, 81
Anshar, 35, 36
Lower, 95
Anu, 30, 35
Babylonian Deluge, other texts
Anup, 101
of the, 67
Apsu, S3. 34, 35
gods, 43
Arabs, 11, 160
Kings, ten, 83
Archaeology, 22
monarch, 58
Archives, 15
ritual, 136
Arioch, 98
story of the Deluge, 61
Ark, the, 63, 68, 133
Babylonians, 2, 10, 16, S4, 88,
Arphaxad, 85
122, 157
Aruru, 48
Balaam, 161
Ashur, 15, 25
Banquet, 36
Ashurbanipal, 16, 25, 72, 134
Basin, 132
Ashurbanipal's library, 24, 25,
Bas-reliefs, 59
26, 61, 67, 141
Bata, 10 1
167
i68
GENERAL INDEX
Behistoun, Mount, 22
Bel, 29, 59, 64, 76, 154
Bel-Merodach, 135
Beliefs, religious, 145
Bellkh, 95
Belshazzar, 159
Benhadad, 105
Berossus, 28, 61, 65
Bilhah, 162
Birs Nimroud, 91
Boaz, 133
Botta, 22
British Museum, 73
Bronze sea, 132
serpents, 133
Budde, 7
Budge, Professor, 81
Calah, 15, 74
Canaan, 4, 6, 45
Canaanites, 20, 72, 157
Canals, 113, 114
Carmel, 130
Ceremonial law, 1 1 1
Ceremonies, 149
Chaldean Genesis, 23
Chaldees, 94
Chaos, 29, 43
Chariot, 27
Chedorlaomer, 98
Cherubim, 58
Chronological system, 108
Chronology, 13, 78, 81, 86, 106,
107
Biblical, 81
Chaldean, 78
Hebrew, 88
of the Books of Kings, 106
Chushan-rishathaim, 88
Circumcision, 139
Cities, 47
Civilization, 3, 8, 46, 49
Clay, 49, 129
Cloisters, 131
Commandments, Ten, 128
Commerce, 17, 118
Cook, S. A., 112
Cosmogony, 49
Cosmology, 19
Covenant, 69
Covenant, Book of the, 1 1 1
Creation, 57
Creation, Babylonian story of,
23
Cuthean legend of, 27
" Creation, Epic of," 24, 30, 42,
45
Creation and Fall of man, 21,
46
legends, 25, 26
of man, 40, 50
story of, 20, 22, 25, 32, 153
Creeds, 17
Criticism, Biblical, 44, 100, 105,
156
Critics, higher, 161
Curses, 144
Cush, 73
Cylinder, 51
Damascus, 28
Daniel, Book of, 159
Darius the Mede, 159
Darius the son of Hystaspes, 159
Darkness, 42
David, 81, 87, 143
Days, 42
Deborah, 87
" Deep," the, 33
Deity, 133, 146
abodes of, 130
Delitzsch, Dr., 51, 58, 59, 121
Deluge, the, 23, 63, 83
Chaldean story of the, 61
Demons, 59
De Morgan, M. J., 109
Deposit, 118
Deuteronomy, Book of, 127
Difference between the ritual of
the temples and the Temple,
138
Differences between the Baby-
lonian cosmogony and
the story of Creation in
the Old Testament, 42
between the second tablet
of Creation story and the
account of the Creation
and Fall of man in the
Book of Genesis, 52
Dillman, 34
Diodorus, 8
Discoveries, 1
Disease, 18, 145
GENERAL INDEX
169
Divine wrath, 145
Dove, 69
Dragon, 34
Dream, a, 62, 134
Driver, Dr., 51, 57, 7$, 97, 156,
158
Dungi, 94
Dynasties, 82
Ea, 29, 35, 53, 62, 66
Eden, 50, 53
Edinu, 50
Egypt, 7, 16, 20, 72>, 80, 88, 100,
164
Egyptian language, 81
Egyptians, 72, 84, 157
Ehud, 87
Ekur, 76, 131
Elam, 72, 98, 109
Elamite War. See War
Elamites, 109
Eli, 87
Ellil, 154
Enoch, 84
Epics, 19
Epic of Creation. See Crea-
tion
Erech, 47, 74
Ereshkigal, 26
Eridu, 17, 48, 49. 133
E-sagila, 47
Esarhaddon, 59, 72
E-sharra, 39
Euphrates, 10, II, 34, 45, 47, 96
Eusebius, 8
Exile, the, 45, 107, 137
Ezekiel, 138
Fall of man, the. See Creation
Fall, the, 52
Family, the, 121
Fasts, 140
Fatherless, 124
Feasts, 140
Festivals, 140
Firmament, 39, 42
Flood, 70
Food of death, 53
of life, 53
Forecasts, 19
Frankincense, 66
Fugitive, 115
Gaga, 36
Gardener, 1 1 3
Garment, 54
Genealogies, 71
Genesis, Book of, 156
first chapters of the Book
of, 21
Geology, 22
Gezer, 7
Gideon, 87
Giesbrecht, 7
Gihon, 51
Gilgamesh, 61
Gimirrai, 72
God, 23, 43. 44. S3, 57, 59, 84,
138
Goddess, 149
Gomer, 72
Gomorrah, 98
Greece, 8
Greeks, 73
Gudea, 142
Gudea's cylinders, 5
Gugu, 72
Guilt, 146
Gutira, 149
Habor, 96
Hagar, 162
Halo, 37
Hammurabi, 1 7, 30, 73,110, ill,
127, 162
Code of, 109, no, 112, 126,
162
letters of, 125
Haran, 95
Hasis-Atra, 62
Hazael, 105
Hebrews, 157
Hermon, Mount, 130
Herodotus, 8
Hezekiah, 105, 133
Hezekiah's reign, 107
Hiddekel, 51
" High place," 130, 131
Hindus, 84
History, 1, n
Hittites, 72, 160
Holy of Holies, 56, 132
Holy River, 120
Hommel, Professor, 46, 49, 157
Houses, 47
170
GENERAL INDEX
Husband, 124
Hymns, 19, 141
Hystaspes, 159
Immortality, 52
Incantation, 145
Incense, 137
Infidelity, 120
Inscription, Moabite, 104
Inscriptions, 8, 156, 159, 162,
165
Irnini, 149
Isaac, 85
Isaiah, 161
Ishtar, 56, 64, 66, 122, 134
prayer to, 149
Islam, 122
Israel, 7, 8, 10, 15, 20, 45, 70,
71, 104, no, 118, 162
prophets of, 153
Israelites, 85, 158
Jacob, 85, 162
Janhamu, 10 1
Jastrow, Professor, 19, 23, 30,
33, 48, 49, 56, 130
Jehovah, 128, 130, 154
Jehu, 45, 105
Jensen, 39
Jephthah, 87, 88
Jerusalem, 105
Jews, 11, 18
Job, 146
Book of, 147, 154
Johns, C. H. W., 112, 128
Jordan, 162
Joseph, 86, 100, 163, 164
Joshua, 87
Book of, 161
Judah, 104
Judges, Book of, 87, 88
Judgment, place of, 119
Judith, Book of, 161
Justice, 119
Kainan, 85
Kaldu, 94
Kasdim, 94
Kepler, 9
Kharsag-Kurkura, 131
King, L. W., 30, 50, 109, 149
Kings, 15
Kings, antediluvian, 85
Books of, 106, 156
Chronology of the Books
of. See Chronology
Kingu, u
Kittel, 163
Knowledge, 54
Kordyaic Mountains, 65
Kronos, 61
Kurdish Mountain, 10
Lachish, 7
Lagash, 17
Lakhamu, 36
Lakhmu, 36
Land, 48
Landlord, 112
Languages, 91
Layard, Henry, 3, 23
Legends, 19, 23, 161
Lender, the power of the, 119
Letter, 59
Levi, 86
Leviathan, 34
Levitical law, 136
Library, 131
Light, 42
Literature, 8, 15, 16, 17-21, 23
Lot, 97, 98
Lugal-zaggisi, 74, 80
Lydia, 72
Machpelah, 118, 162, 163
Mada, 73
Magical texts, 19
Magician, 135
Mankind, 48
Marduk, 25, 26, 29, 30, ^6, 40,
43, 44.48, 55. 56, 141, 154
Marduk's power, a sign to demon-
strate, T,6
Massoretic Hebrew text, 83, 84
Medicine, 18
Mediterranean, 14
Melchisedek, 98
Menes, 81
Merchant, 118
Mercy-seat, 132
Merenptah, 103
Merodach, 143
Merodach-baladan, 95
Mesha, 87
GENERAL INDEX
171
Meshech, 73
Mesopotamia, 10, 14, 27
Mesopotamian Empire, 15
Valley, 2
Messengers, 58
Misfortunes, 145
" Missed the Mark," 147
Monarch, 58
Monsul, 22
Months, 39
Moon, 39
Moses, 36, 86, 87, no, 127, 158,
161, 162
the Law of, 109, no,
126
Mounds, 2, 3
Mountain, 131
Musku, 73
Nabona'id, 96
Nabonidus, 79
Nabopolassar, 59, 95
Naharina, 96
Naram-Sin, 79
Nations, 71
Nebo, 59
Nebuchadnezzar, 91, 95, 132,
143
Necromancer, 135
Nergal, 26
Net, 37
New Testament, 34
Niffer, 76
Nile, 16, 81
Nimrod, 73
Nineveh, 16, 23, 74
Nin-girsu, 142
Ninib, 66
Nippur, 17, 47, 80
Nippur Court, 133
Nisir, 65
Noah, 68, 83
Obedience, 52
Observance of the Sabbath, 57
Offerings, vegetable, 138
Old Testament, 1, 8, 9, 20, 34,
144. 153
Olives, Mount of, 130
Olympus, 127
Omens, 19
Omri, 104
Onyx, 50
Othniel, 87
Palace, 133
Palaces, 2, 15
Palestine, 7, 98, 105, 158
Papyrus, 164
Parallelism, 31
Parnapishtim, 62, 65, 68
Patriarchs, 103, 156, 160
Patriarchs, ten, 83
Pekah, 105
Pennsylvania, University of, 76
Pentateuch, 160, 161
Peor, Mount, 130
Perath, 51
Peters, Dr., 91
Petrie, Professor, 81
Pharaoh, 102, 164
Physician, 56
Piety, 68
Pinches, Mr. T. G., 73, 112
Pishon, 51
Poets, 153
Polytheism, 43
Possessions, 114
Potiphar, 164
Prayer, 132
Prayers, 19, 142
Priestly Code, 1 38
document, 44, 45
Priests, 17, 79, 133
houses of, 131
Property, 116, 117, 121
Prophetesses, 135
Prophets, 134, 135
Psalms, 146, 147
Penitential, 140, 144
Punishment, 146
Pyramids, 81
Queen-mother, 59
Rachel, 162
Rahab, 34, 154
Rainbow, 69
Ransom, 126
Raven, 69
Rawlinson, Major Henry, 22
Re, 101
Reed-hut, 62
Rehoboam 104
172
GENERAL INDEX
Relation between the Baby-
lonian " Epic of Creation "
and the story of Creation in
the first chapter of the Book of
Genesis, 43
Religion, 16, 17, 20, 125
Rent, 113
Resemblances between the Baby-
lonian cosmogony and the
story of Creation in the
Old Testament, 41
between the Code of Ham-
murabi and the Law of
Moses, 126
between the ritual of the
temples and the Temple,
136
between the temples and
the Temple, 132
between the second tablet
of Creation story and the
account of the Creation
and Fall of man in the
Book of Genesis, 5 2
Rituals, 19
Rogers, Dr. R. W., 153
Rome, 8
Ruins, 2
Sabbath, 55, 51
Sacrifice, 69
human, 136
of a lamb, 139
Sacrifices, 56, 135
bloody, 137, 138
unbloody, 137
Samaria, 105, 107
Samaritan text, 83, 84
Samson, 87
Samuel, 87
Sarah, 162
Sargon, 73, 78, 79, 105
Sarpanitum, 55
Satan, 59
Saul, 87
Sayce, Professor, 15, 23, 49, 81,
94, 122, 132, 133, 136, 140,
157. I58, 159, 161, 162
Scapegoat, 136
School, 131
Science, 18
Scribes, 15, 17, 78, 79
Secular, 18
Seer, 134
Semites, 11, 12, 118, 119, 130, 139
Semitic-Babylonian, 46
beliefs, 6
legends, 27
race, 10
Sennacherib, 105, 107
Septuagint, 83, 84
Seraphim, 58
Serpent, 51
Sex, 33
Shalmaneser I., 74
Shalmaneser II., 73
Shamash, 126, 141
Shem, 71
Shew-bread, 132
Shinar, 130
Ship, 61, 65
Shoham, 50
Shops, 131
Siddim, 97
Sin, the Moon-god, 94, 96
Sinai, Mount, 127
Sins of mankind, 68
Sipparia, 109
Sippur, 17
Slave, 115, 116
Smith, Dr. G. A., 69
Smith, Mr. George, 23, 61
Sodom, 98
Solomon, 132
Temple of, 87, 129
Spell, a, 120
Stars, 18
States, 13
Stones, 129
Sumerian-Akkadian, 46
Sumerian language, 81
legends, 27
predecessors, yj
Sumerians, 5, 12, 122
Sun, 39
Surgery, no
Surippak, 62
Swallow, 68
Syncellus, 8
Synchronism, 82
Syria, 14, 105
Taanach, 7
Tabali, 71
GENERAL INDEX
173
Tablets, contract, 17
of Creation, 2, 24, 28, 77,
138, 144
Tablet, the first, 32
the second, 35, 5 2
the third, 36
the fourth, 36
the fifth, 39
the sixth, 40
the seventh, 40
Tel-el-Amarna, 5, 7, 26, 45
letters, 96
tablets, 158
Temples, 2, 15, 129
Tenant, 112
Terah, 71
Text, 72
Thief, 116
Tiamat, 26, 29, 33, 35. 37. 3«,
59. 154
Tidal, 98
Tiglath-pileser I., 14. 73
Tiglath-pileser II., 15
Tiglath-pileser's invasion of
Palestine, 105
Tigris, 10, 47, 96
Tithe, 136
Trade, 117
Trances, 134
Tubal, 73
Universe, 46
Ur, 17. 94.96. 97
Ur-bau, 94
Uruk, 17, 61
Van, Lake, 14
Vegetation, 40, 46
Vision, to Noah, 68
Visions, 134
War, 145,
Elamite, 134
Water, 47
Water of death, 53
of life, S3. 54
Waters of Death, 62
Widow, 124
Wife, 120
Witness, 119
Woman, 121
Writing material, 4
Xisuthros, 61
Yahweh, 90
Yakin, 133
Yavan, 71
Zaphenath-Pa-neah, 102
Zelophehad, 86
Ziggurat, or Zikkurat, 91
174
INDEX TO BIBLICAL PASSAGES
Genesis.
i.-ii. 4a, pp. 22, 44, 45
i. 2, p. 29
i. 9, p. 48
ii., p. 46
ii. 4b-iii. 24, p. 46
ii. 24, p. 58
iii., p. 51
iii- 5, p. 54
iii 22, 23, p. S3
vi.-ix., p. 68
x., p.71
x. 2, p. 73
x. 6, pp. 72, 73
x. 6, 7, p. 73
x. 8., p. 73
x. 10, pp. 61, 74
x. 11, p. 74
x. 10, 11, pp. 73, 74
x. 12, p. 74
x. 15, p. 72
x. 18, 19, 24, p. 72
xi. 4, 1-9, p. 90
xi. 4, p. 130
xi. 27-32, p. 94
xi. 28, pp. 95, 96
xi. 31, p. 95
xi. 32, p. 95
xiv., pp. 97, 99, 160
xiv. 1, p. 99
xiv. 1-12, p. 97
xiv. 5, 9, 17, p'. 98
xv. 13, p. 85
xv. 16, p. 86
xxiii., p. 163
xxiv. 4, p. 97
xxiv. 7, p. 97
xxiv. 10, p. 95
xxv. 1-2, p. 85
xxv. 26, p. 85
xxvi. 34, p. 85
xxvii. 19, p. 125
xxvii. 43, p. 95
xxvii. 43, p. 97
xxvm. 10-20, p. 130
xxxv. 28, p. 85
xxxix. 7 et seq., p. 100
Exodus.
iv. 2-8, p. 37
xii. 40, p. 86
xxi. 28-32, p. 114
xxii. 1-4, p. 117
xxii. 6 et seq., p. 121
xxii. 9, p. 117
xxii. 16, p. 123
Leviticus.
vi. 2 et seq., p. 118
xx. 11 et seq., p. 124
xxii. 23, p. 137
Numbers.
xv. 27, p. 137
xxvii. 1, p. 86
Deuteronomy.
i. 15, 16, p. 115
xii. 2, p. 130
xxiv. 17, p. 125
xxxiii., 18 et seq.,
p. 130
Judges.
v. 4, 5, p. 127
1 Samuel.
i. 14, p. 138
vii. 16, p. 119
2 Samuel.
vii. 18 p. 143
xv. 7, p. 88
xv. 32, p. 130
1 Kings.
v.-viii., p. 132
vi. 1, p. 87
vn. 21, p. 133
xi. 7, p. 130
xvii. 19, p. 130
2 Kings.
xvii., xviii. 11, p. 96
1 Chronicles.
xxi. i, p. 59
Job.
i. et seq., p. 59
ix. 13, p. 154
xxvi. 12, 13, p. 154
xxix. 7 et seq., p. 119
Psalms.
Ixxiv. 12-17, p. 155
lxxxix. 8-12, p. 153
xci. 11, p. 59
Isaiah.
xix., p. 164
lviii. 13, p. 56
lxv. 3, p. 137
Jeremiah.
i. 2, p. 29
vi. 20, p. 137
ix., 25, 26, p. 139
EZEKIEL.
i., p. 58
Amos.
ix. 3, p. 155
Zechariah.
iii. 1 et seq., p. 59
St. Matthew.
iv. 11, p. 59
xviii. 10, p. 59
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