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lyl
i
rrz e
ta 1 E
tz
a
a
a
nd
E
rty
B v e ./LIz
ory.
BY
RO
ES
R
OF
LEIPZIG::
IT L
LI;..
{
TRANSLATED FROII
THE
GBRIIAN
BY
DM D
CL E A.
EDITED
WITH
PREFACE BY
E
y
A
D.
hird
Edition, Enlarged.
LONDON:
soc Y F PR OTr CH TI KNO ED
THU RLA AVE W. 43. EN ORI
BRIGHTON: 129. NORfH
STREET.
NE ORK S. G H
19
08
N 1 C
s
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PUBLISRED t IMI nIRECTIO OJ T1IE
TR CT
r . o K I I I ~ ' T E
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AUTHOR S PREFATORY NOTE T
THE
FIRST EDITION.
TH
following discourse consists of an
Address delivered before a Conference and
now published at the special request of many.
I have availed myself of the opportunity of
seeing the work through the press to add
in the way
of
notes some confirmatory
illustl ations.
PREFACE T THE
THmD
EDITION.
A
N W
edition of this discourse, which was
delivered a few years ago, having been called
for, I have introduced into the text, in order
to avoid dislocating it too much, only a few
corrections and additions here and there, t
the end, however, will be found some new
matter referring to several more recent dis-
coveries,
THE AUTHOR.
LElrzIG,
ay
8, 19o5.
A 2
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ENGLISH EDITOR S PREFACE.
THE
Lecture
by
Professor Kittel of Leipzig
. of which a translation is, with the author s
consent, published in the following pages, will
be found, it is believed, of peculiar interest
and value t the present moment. Great
attention has of late been directed to the
bearing of recent discoveries in ancient
Babylonia upon the sacred records in the
Book of Genesis. Under the title of abel
nd
ible Professor Friedrich Delitzsch has
endeavoured t persuade the public th t the
early narratives in th t Book, and the whole
conception of the world and of man s place in
it
which Jews and Christians have learned
from them, are rea.lly derived from the Baby-
lonian legends on the same subjects; and he
has pressed home the inevitable conclusion
from such a view th t they cannot be regarded
as due t any Divine revelation. The Gel IDan
Emperor, though he repudiates the Professor s
28688
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6
PREFACE
. conclusions, has given cun ency
to
his specu-
lations
by
the special attention he has paid to
them,
and there are eager endeavours in some
quarters to
tre t
the main contentions of
Professor Delitzsch as established results of
scientific inquiry. n such circumstances
it
ecomes
of great importance to learn
whether the conclusions of which Professor
Delitzsch has made himself the spokesman
are really accepted by the best authorities in
critical circles. He is a considerable authority
in Aflsyriology; but his name may carry
undue weight in the popular mind by recalling
the venerable authority of his father, the
eminent Professor Franz Delitzsch. The fact
is
th t
his allegations have provoked a lively
controversy among German scholars; and the
lecture which
is
here translated
will
give the
English reader,
in
brief compass, a clear and
authoritative view of the opposition which,
on
purely scientific grounds, is being offered
in
Germany itself
to
the revolutionary views
in question.
Professor Kittel s name is well known and
honoured among all students of the higher
criticism of the Old Testament. He belongs
to the critical and historical school of which
the late Professor Dillmann of Berlin was the
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PREFACE
7
most eminent representative. He accepts the
current critical theories respecting the
com-
position of the Pentateuch,
but
rejects, like
Dillmann, the radical transformation of
ancient Jewish history which is adopted by
the popular school of Wellhausen. He is
recognized, however, as in the first r nk of
living critics, and his
istory o the
Hebr6 l.L B,
in which his critical and historical views are
embodied, was introduced to the English
pu hlic a few years ago in n English trans-
la.tion with a kindly Preface by Professor
Cheyne. Certainly, said Professor Cheyne,
the author's treatment of the traditions
respecting Moses and the Mosaic religion,
however much we may differ from his con-
clusions, is worthy of the most respectful
consideration, The English reader therefore
may he confident that,
in
listening to Professor
Kittel, he is in the hands of a critic whose
voice has a claim to
be
heard, in Germany as
well as in England, on this great controversy.
Now it will
be
found th t this Leipzig Pro-
fessor traverses in the most direct manner the
conclusions
so
loudly asserted by his brother
Profe or
in Berlin. Commencing with
n
interesting comparison between the recent
excavations in Crete and those in Babylonia
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8
PREFACE
and Assyria, he shows
that
in both cases the
result is to establish the existence of a solid
historic background for the traditions which
have come down to us from a period which,
alike in Ol eek and in Hebrew history, it has
been the custom t treat as prehistoric. The
l esult has been
at
least to remove any pre-
sumption based on archaeological grounds
against the historic b uth of the narratives of
the Patriarchs, But Professor Kittel proceeds
to expose the unreasonableness of the sup-
position,
that
the existence of a resemblance
between the Hebrew and Babylonian nan a-
tives of the Creation and the Flood is a proof
that
the former were derived from the latter.
He forcibly points out
that
the most remark-
able fact which results from the comparison is
not the resemblance but the difference between
the two, and he expresses his own conviction
that they represent entirely distinct traditions.
Considering that
Abraham is represented as
coming into Canaan from
Ur
and Harran, it
seems gratuitous
t
suppose that the Hebrew
traditions were only acquired at a later date
from such sources as the Canaanite population,
and much more natural to think
that
they were
brought by Abraham himself. In short, as he
says
p.
50), the Biblical conception of the
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PREFACE
9
universe, which constitutes a
p rt
of our faith,
and,
in
BO far as it does BO
is
for us not a
Baby Ionian conception,
but
extremely ancient
knowledge, the result of experience, and by
this way revealed by God to man and pre-
served among His people.
The Tract Committee thought that it would
reassure the minds of thoughtful Churchmen
and students of Scripture to have these ober
conclusions, which are substantially
in
har-
mony with the faith of the Church, submitted
to them
on
the authority of n eminent
German critic and historian of the time.
Such evidence will, in the present state of the
public mind, probably
be
thought of more
value than any controversial reply
to
Professor
Delitzsch
by
an English scholar or Churchman.
For this reason the Tract Committee have
thought
it
right to
prmt
a careful and complete
translation
of
Professor Kittel's pamphlet, al-
though there are passages in
it
from which they
are obliged to dissent. They cannot follow Pro-
fessor Kittel, for instance,
in
all the concessions
he
makes
to
current criticism, or
in his
view
of 'the bearing of such a question as the
historic reality of Abraham, and the sacred
records about him, on the Christian faith. n
publishing such a pamphlet, they are perhaps
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0
PREFACE
departing
in
some measure from their
usua l
practice. But English readers are
at
the
present time being somewhat browbeaten by
allegations of the practica.l unanimity of
GeI:lDan critics on these subjects; and there is
some danger lest preachers and people alike
should assume, from recent discussions n the
newspapers,
that
in scientific circles there is
only one' view
of
these questions. Professor
Kittel's statements, published 88 they are
here in their entirety, will prove
that
this is a
complete mistake. His Lecture will show
to
the English reader
that
in the highest circles
of criticism,even in Germany, there are scholars
who ma i ntain
that
nothing has yet been
established inconsistent with the
truth
of the
Patri.a.rchal narratives, or with the independent
and Divine origin of the sacred records of the
Creation and the
flood;
or, in the modest
but
weighty phrase of Bishop Butler, thatwith
respect to the ancient belief of the Church on
these subjects,
it
is not, however, so clear
a case
that
there is nothing n it.
ST
MICILUL'S,
CoURILL,
Febncary 1903.
HENRY WACE.
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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS
AND EARLY BIBLE HISTORY.
IT
is a little over a hundred years since
it
was the good fortune of a German scholar
to
decipher
1
for the fit st time a few of the cunei-
form characters. No additional important
discoveries were made for another fifty years,
and a further period elapsed before any results
of scientific value could
be
reported.
The more
it
became evident
that
the dis-
coveries in the distant East had a bearing on
the subjects and incidents n the Bible, the
greater grew the enthusiasm, especially in
England and
America-the
land of Bible
knowledge
p r etCellence
and also,
if
we
may
say so of Christian sensationalism. When,
therefore, George Smith was fortunate enough
to diseover,
in
the year
1 8 7 ~
cuneiform frag-
ments containing
an
account of the Flood, the
expressions of delight beyond the
Channel and
the Atlantic knew no bounds. Sermons from
the pulpit, and whole columns of the daily
press, were filled with accounts of the discovery,
and some began
to
look forward
to
the day
when not only would the Union Jack float from
the taffrail of a newly discovered and authentic
1 t was in September, 1802 that Grotefend brought
before
the Gotlinger
Gesellschajt
der Wissenschtif m the
first
attempt at decipherment.
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12 1'UE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
Ark, but, what was of more importance, when
every doubt of the sceptical, and every sneer
of the mocker, in regard to the Bible, would
be utterly and inevitably confounded.
Seldom has the expression, if these shall
hold their peace, the stones will cry out, been
more frequently employed
and more grossly
misused than in the early days of the new learn
ing. Thoughtful Christians were unable to find
a hearing when they sought to point out to the
enthusiasts that it would hardly e in keeping
with the method of Divine government to set
entirely aside the old saying, They have
Moses
llnd the Prophets, let them hear them, and
to separate the recognition of the truth of His
word from individual moral effort and faith.
A very different picture presents itself be
fore our eyes to-day. A period of sobriety
and, in many cases, of depression has fol-
lowed
that
of jubilation and enthusiasm. n
the family of Oriental studies, Assyriology is
the latest born. It need not be a matter of
wonder, therefOl e,
if
in
individual instances
the repl'esentatives of the new knowledge
should not always have been able to shake off
the childlike love of sensation. Formerly,
men were attracted to the study of the Monu
ments in the hope of finding arguments on
behalf of the Bible. Now, the contemporaries
of Nietzsche and Haeckel find there is a much
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EARLY
BIBLE
HISTORY 13
greater prospeet of attention belng directed
to
the new leM'ning
if
it should succeed
in
adducing evidence against both the Bible and
Christianity. Indeed, of late years, especially
on occasions which would assign something
more than their ol'dinary meaning to expres-
sions of this kind, some scholars have ventured
on assertions which inevitably suggest that
the results of recent scientific
research-and
especially of recent
excavations-go to
prove
that
there can be
no
greater aberration of
the human intellect
than
belief
in
the Divine
Revelation
of
the Old Testament as mani-
fested either
in its
monotheism,
its
prophets,
or
in any
other respects I
Let us, therefore, bl'iefly
inquire-sine
ira
et 8tudio-how far we may expect to find help
from the Monuments, or how far we may have
to regal'd them as adverse to the Bible, One
result we may already regard as manifest.
As long as we do not expect too much from
external or
merely human sources, our hopes
will not be readily disappointed; and on the
other hand,
if
we fear no ea1'thly foe, Babylon
and all
its wOl ks
will not succeed
in
shaking
the rock on which
our
faith is based.
When I was a schoolboy, it was regarded
1 cr. Delitzscb, abel una Bibel Lecture
II,
ISt edit,
In
a later edition Delitz8ch partly toned down bis
statement.
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14
TH
BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
as the
final
verdict of scholarship that the
great Homeric Epic, in which the battles
of
the Greeks before Troy are depicted, was en
tirely the outcome of the phantasy of a poet,
or of a body of singers. Then Schliemann,
a layman among scholars, appeared on the
scene, who set to work with his spade on
the site of Tl OY, where no scholar of the
time would have dared to excavate without
imperilling his scientific reputation. I well
remember in my student-days how the scorn
of the whole body of the learned, and the
ridicule even of the comic papers, was
poured upon him when he came forward to
announce his discovery of Priam s- city, his
palace, and his treasures. For in those days
it was
an
article of belief with scholars that
our knowledge of the history of ancient
Greece practically began with Herodotus and
the time of the Persian wars.
To-day
it
is common ground in science
that the Greek expedition against Troy, not
of course in regard to particulars, but in
substance, was a fact, and that Tiryns,
My-
cenae, and Orchomenos were powerful states,
with a richly developed life and compara
tively high culture, of which, through the
channel of historical tradition alone, only
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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY
faint and mythical knowledge had
come
down
to us. Only last Whitsuntide, when I was
returning after the holidays to Leipzig, I met
in the railway carriage a learned friend who
was on his way back from Crete, and who
had seen there the excavations undertaken by
Evans, and was able to boast
that
he had sat
upon the throne and n the palace of King
Minos, a monarch well remembered by us all
at
school, and universally regarded by us as
the mere product of a myth
I ,
Why do I mention these things hm e 1 Do
not
be an-aid that I am going to
lose
myself
in the region of Greek antiquity, when our
concern is with Biblical and Babylonian,
I merely adduce these instances
n
order
to
show how in every domain of n c i e n ~ history,
even in the neutral region of classical anti
quity, a revision of our previous judgements
has been required as soon as the spade has
begun to ~ a k e the place of, or
at
least to
1
Minos
has
been
frequently
regarded as a Cretan
god, also as a personification
of
Zeus,
or
again
of the
Phoenician domination, and
of
Baal-Melkart
or of
Moon
worship, or even as a Sun-god, though Curtius, it is true,
already recognized him as a figure standing on the
threshold of history.
t
is readily seen how features of
the
(Cretan) Sun-god were associated with
the
historical
king, and how he thus came to be raised
to the
position
of a son of
the
gods.
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16 THE
BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
prepare the way for, the pen.
Much that
we
previously held, and seemed justified in hold
ing as mythica.l, is now coming into the light
of history; and side by side with the already
mentioned Minos
we
have now, through the
latest discovered Assyrian inscriptions,
come
to accept the historical existence of King
Midas of Phrygia, of whom we previously
knew little more than the mythical story of his
asses' ears,
but
who is now recognized as an
actual and worthy ruler of the eighth century
before Christ 1 Many other things which are
still unknown, or only imperfectly known,
will doubtless emerge into light before
us,
and we may even now pronounce
in
regard
to this region the collective judgement, that
the
ea.1 ly
period of Greece, which previously,
and until quite lately as far as the time
before Herodotus and the Persian wars was
concerned, was involved in da.rkness, is coming
1 t
is
in
complete agreement with
what
is
to be ex
plained
further on
that
Midas continues
at the
present
time to be described briefly as an ancient divinity
of the
Northern
Greeks
and
Phrygians, more exactly (cf.
his
riches) as
a
blessing-scattering Nature-god
in
the
form of an animal, like SiIenus, and originally Dionysus,
a880Ciated with
whom
the ss
is
not
infrequently found.
To
this
ancient demon
of
vegetation,
clc. Thus
de
scribed in Roscher, Lexikon
er
gmch.-rilm.. Jlvthologie ii
col. 296 et seq.
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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY
11
more and more into the light of history; and
periods of development persons events and
circumstances which not long since were held
as absolutely prehistoric. are rising up unex
pectedly before us, so that we shall soon know
more of Greece and the Islands in the second
Millennium before our era than some twenty
or twenty-five
ye8J. s
ago we knew of the
former half of the first.
Now
it
is in the second Millennium before
Christ
that
the early history of the people
of
Israel falls.
As
we
soo,
from what has been
already said that in
regard to a region not far
distant from Palestine a process
is
going on
which we may briefly describe as a reaction
against earlier negative judgements: as we
see the boundaries of our knowledge ex
tending our reliance on certain traditions
becoming more assured while the foundations
themselves are unexpectedly demonstrated to
be capable of bearing more
than
had been
previously
assumed all
this cannot
but
be of
the greatest significance for Biblical criticism.
According to all analogy indeed we may
henceforward expect that in
the
case of
Biblical science also the stakes may be pushed
further forward
and the cords much further
lengthened than anxious minds were prep8J. ed
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TH BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
for
and that, too, without leaving the ground
of the historically possible and admissible.
f
in the case of Hellas and the Islands the
second Millennium before Christ is no longer
absolutely a terra incognita in all probability
the presumably older culture-field of Syria and
Palestine will be still less
so.
This expectation, already justified on in
trinsic grounds, has now been confirmed
in
a striking manner
by
actual discoveries on
Eastern soil.
Since the illustrious r i e n t a l i ~ t and theolo
gian of Gottingen, Heinrich Ewald, sug
gested
that
the names of the Patriarchs of
the Israelitish people
are to
be
explained, in
a measure, as names of tribes,
it
has come
more and more
to
be regarded as proved
that
the earliest traditions concerning the
Patriarchs and Tribes of Israel are merely
poetical presentations of myths-projections
of later history into the prehistoric past.
After
an
exhaustive literary criticism had
demonstrated
that
many portions of the
Hebrew legal and historical documents were
materially later than had previously been
supposed, the earlier and oldest tl adition
seemed to be altogether deprived of
an
au
thentic basis, and, consequently, of the right
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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY I
to exist at all. How then are we to know
anything of ancient times, it may be asked, i f
we
have no documents 1
Who, indeed, would vouch for the fact that
writing was known at all in those ancient
days?
It
was doubted whether the
use of
writing was known
in
Israel even as late as
the time of the Judges. t was then, more
over, observed that exactly
at
the epoch
when men had thought themselves justified
in fixing the obscure dawning of histOlic
times, there was a period in Israel of relatively
rude mannel S and imperfect civilization-tbe
so-called time of the Judges. But supposing
, that the testimonies belong to a late date, and
that
we have no written evidence from an
earlier period, what was more natural than
to assume. in aecordaI ce with modern prin
ciples and the law of evolution, that we have
here
t do, in
fact, with the beginning of a
course of development, and that on the most
favourable supposition the times of the Judges
and of Saul coincided with the dawn of
Israelitish history, behind which stretched
the impenetrable and never-to-be-illumined
darkness of night 1
Everything thus seemed, and seems, t
contribute to establish the truth of the propo
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20
THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
s i t i o n ~ w h i h
is to-day indeed regarded as
almost the orthodox dogma ora truly scientific
theology that the history
of
Israel really
begins
in
the time of the Judges and the early
Kings behind which on the most favourable
hypothesis Moses still occupies a place though
merely
that
of a dim and vague figure
ha I dly
within the province
of
history.
Here too
it
has been given to
the
spade to
throw light upon the question and
if
to-day
it seems somewhat hazardous
to
discern a
similar result nevertheless
it
is my confident
conviction that it will more and more assert
itself and will be established more
and
more triumphantly as our knowledge of
the
ancient East advances. Already as
it
would
seem owing to the advance in our know
ledge the axe is laid
to
the real root of
the matter to the ultimate and most.deeply
seated base
of
this whole conception
that
is to the dogma
of
a continuous and
unbroken line of evolution. The latest ex
cavations
in
Crete
to
which allusion has
been already made have brought. home to
the astonished eyes of the few who have
seen the material for the most part still
undescribed the startling fact that there far
back in the second Millennium before Christ
a creative art was
in
full activity far excel-
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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY
2
ling in perfectioIl; tha.t which
wa s
known
in
the early Greek period. How are we to
interpret this phenomenon otherwise than on
the hypothesis that at an early period pre
viously regarded as pre-historic and outside
the domain of history altogether in a region
in the closest relations with Greece. intellectual
development had already reached so high a
degree. of matUlity that it was capa ble of
exhibiting
an
artistic activity of a distinct
c1a ssica l c h a r a . ~ t e r a n d that in the convul
sionsof what was previously called the Early
Greek Period this inheritance of an ancient
time was lost to the tribes of Greece and the
Islands and that Hellas had
to
sta.rt afresh in
the so-called archaic Greek art on its path of
evolution torea.ch a t length in Phidias and
Praxiteles its highest triumph of artistic skill 1
In
all probability the ancient East exhibited
the same degree of culture. The Berlin Museum
contains in this respect an extraordinarily
suggestive and splendidly sculptured head of
an ancient Sumerian priest-consequently a
representative of the most ancient period of
pre-Semitic Babylon. A similar impression is
produced by certain antiquities from Tello es-
pecially a series of magnificent examples in the
Louvre in Paris. But as a still more striking
example I may point to two bronze gazelle-
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THE B B Y L O N ~ N EXCAVATIONS AND
heads in the possession of my friend Hilprecht
the
scientific leader of the richly-rewarded
Amerie n exC vations
at
Nippurl
in
Babylonia
-who
himself discovered them. The surpris
ing deliC cy of execution, the noble beauty and
fidelity to nature by which these representa
tions are characterized, must excite the rapture
of every one who
sees
them:
they would, in my
judgement,
do
honour
to
the
telier
of a Begas
or a Donndorf. The life-size example, which
is of wondrous beauty, is especially character.;
istic. They come down
to
us from the time
of Sargon I, and therefore belong,
at
the latest,
to the Fourth, perhaps even to the Fifth
Millennium before Christ. The material of
theSe
figures,
8
determined by a thorough
chemie l
examination, consists of an alloy of
copper and antimony, without any admixture
of tin, and they consequently belong to the
period before the manufacture of genuine
bronze was known in Babylonia or elsewhere.
They excel, moreover, in considerable mea
sure, much
ifnot
all, that the later Babylonian
workshops have turned out
2.
1
Now called Ni1fer. t is probably
the
Calneh
of the
Bible which the list
of
Nations Gen. x) places among
the oldest cities
of
Babylon.
, For
further
information
on
the
matter, see
the
Transactions
of
the Berlin Anthropologische Gesellschaft,
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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY
3
And here also we can
see
in my opinion
no other explanation than
that
already given.
A degradation must have taken place a
species of intellectual impoverishment-a re
trograde movement and a falling off from a
previous higher stage of cplture but which was
again approached and that too gradually and
by slow degrees 1. What becomes then of the
dogma of continuous development
in
the case
of Israel? and what kind of right have we to
assume
that
the rude customs and conceptions
of the period
of
the Judges represent absolutely
the beginning of the national life of Israel 1
But when once the foundation becomes in
secure the structures erected upon
it
are not
likely to remain ul.lshaken. One
of
the chief
supports of the latter is as we have seen the
now frequently reiterated assertion that the
Israelites of the time of
Moses before the
entrance into Canaan were nothing more
19o1 Feb. 16 where the photographic reproduction of
the smaller example is given. .
1
H. Winckler also seems quite lately to .represent a
similar view. See Babyl. Kultt4r 19o2 p. 13. This work
however came only into my
hands
while these pages
were going through the
press;
while
the
view
put
forth
above had been expressed frequently by me both publicly
and privately as soon
a8
I became acquainted with
the
discovery in question; in
the
last instance at the Church
Conference at Meissen
in
the
Spring of 19o2.
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4 THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
than a rude tribe of Nomads, destitute
of
all
higher culture, who had hitherto wandered
about
n
the Arabian wilderness, and whose
state of civilization and religious development
may be compared, in some respects, to the
present, 01 even the pre-Islamic, condition of
the Bedouin tribes of this region, and
n
others
to that
of even the wildest nature-races
of the present day.
About twenty years ago this error was
n
a
certain measure excusable. t had been known
for
along
time that Egypt and Babylon were
n
possession of a highly ancient civilization,
but of the early condition of Syria and Pales
tine, and of the desert regions on their borders,
extremely little was known. Our knowledge
was limited, for the most part,
to
what we
could infer from the Bible, namely, that the
pre-Israelite inhabitants of the Holy
Land-
the so-called Canaanites-excelled the in
vading Hebrews in the
art
of war and in
general culture, and that consequently they
became later on their instructors. e may
hence
in some
measure understand how the
conclusion was drawn, that Israel
was
then
still
n
the condition of an uncivilized
nomadic horde.
But, thanks to the Tel-el.Amarna
tablets
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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY
25
discovered in the beginning of I888-which
contaill a correspondence, condllcted
in
cunei
form writing, between the Pharaohs, Ame
no phis III and
IV
(circ. 1400 B.C. , with
contemporary Eabylonian, Canaanite, and
other rulers and chiefs-we now possess a
fairly exact knowledge of the material and
intellectual environment
in which the s ~
raelites found themselves
in
Canaan, and
out of which they came. We see from these
sources of information
that
the conception of
the
Canaanites with which the Eible furnishes
us is entirely corl ect,
but that it
must be
supplemented by this further fact, namely,
that
the land was subject politically to
Egyptian rule,
and
intellectually
t
Baby
lonian influences. We find, moreover, from
these tablets, and frem other sources of in
formation also, that there can e no ground
for the assumption
that
the Syro-Arabian, and
to some extent the Sinaitic-Arabian, desert
regions on the Palestine border were in the
same condition as they are to-day, or as they
were
in
the first centUlies of our era.
Arabia at that time was not simply a region
of Bedouins, a pasture land.
t
was too, the
home of comparatively settled peoples, with
strongholds and towns, and warlike chiefs.
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26
THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
Their mode of living was by no means lacking
in advanced e6ucation and culture; but, on
the contrary, was thoroughly saturated with
the elements of Babylonian,. and no doubt
also of Egyptian, life and thought. Round
about them, in Syria and Palestine, a highly
developed civilization had been already n
active existence for
at
least a full thousand
years.
t
is impossible
that
the land adjoin
ing these countries should have been n the
condition
we
find it in to-day, after subjection
for
a thousand years to the rule of the
Turk;
or such as it was n the time of Mohammed 1
It is still more perverse, n the f ce of
such facts, to measure as
it
has become
quite lately the fashion
to
do in regard
to
the history and religious condition of early
Greece) the general and religious situation
of Israel at that time
by
the standard of
fetish-worshipping and totemistic
savages-
as
if
Israel or Greece were then
at
the same
stage of civilization as
that
of such barbaric
peoples and tlibes to-day, and their
mode
of
thought and morals were consequently to be
understood from those of the latter.
I
will, n
this connexion, adduce only one
consideration.
f it
is certain, as we learn
1
Compare Weber, Arabien vor d m Islam J90J.
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EARLY BIBLE IIISTORY
27
from the Tel-el-Ama.ma discovery, that an ex
tensive epistolary literature existed in Canaan
and its neighbourhood about
1400 B.
c., is
it
1I t
all likely that
oses
and his followers
living only a few days' journey away-should
remain perfectly uninfluenced by such know
ledge and skill, and should not be able to
write 1 Does not rather the tradition that
oses
was lea.med
in
all
the wisdom of the
Egyptians receive further confirmation, with
the addition, as we now know,
olthe
Baby
lonians
as well-not in the sense that he
had Babylonians for his personal instructors,
but because Babylonian modes of thought,
and civilizing influences, along 'with Egyptian,
predominated in the region in which he lived.
One further consideration.
We
hear
it
frequlntly repeated that the tradition of the
Israelite sojourn in Egypt is unhistorical,
because there was
no
room for a foreign
nomadic people in the thickly settled districts'
of
that country, and, on the other hand, that
the tradition of Abraham's enteling into
Canaan is open to the same objection from
the point of .view of Palestine. But what
are
we to
say of such suggestions,
in face
of
the fact
that the Inscriptions tell us of gradual
shirtings of peoples, and of the immigration of
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28 THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
wandering
that
is nomadic. tribes into the
civilized territories of the Euphrates and
that
the Tel-el-Amarna. tablets desClibe exactly as
we
find related of Abraham Isaac and Jacob
the intrusion of nomadic tribes into Palestine
their moving to and fro among the settled
population appearing now here and now
there making peace or war with them and
as opportunity offered forcing
at
the point of
the sword towns and districts to become their
. allies and at length becoming settlers in the
land.
And.here at the conclusion of this current
of thought I am led to the consideration of
the aspect
n
which the Biblical Patriarchs are
presented. I shall not discuss here the argu
ment now
so
favoured that no people can
know its own original progenitor thatnations
o not take their oligin from persons but
are formed by the coalescence of tribes and
kinsmen. How
far
this contention
is
true or
false cannot be determined from the inscrip
tions at first sight. I will content myself
here therefore with remarking that tribes of
the kind represented in Genesis such as those
composed of the kinsmen of Abraham and
Jacob need not as we learn from the East
of to-day consist of
~ h o u s a n d s
of individuals.
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EARLY
BIBLE
HISTORY
There are small. tribes and clans which number
only
some two hundred souls, and in many
cases much fewet. The Turkish Government
has, in this connexion, lately prepared ex
tremely instructive statistics concerning the
Bedouin tribes ofthe Jaulan and Hauran, and
also of the north-eastern t-erritory beyond the
Jordan
1. t
appears moreover still the case
to-day, as
it
always was,
that
tribes, whether
great or small, either take their designation
from
some
district or region, or from
some
distinguished sheikh or chief of whom they
reckon themselves the sons. Thus are to
be
most readily explained such modern designa
tions as Beni Muhammed, Beni Abdallah,
Beni Abuhassan, Beni Aneze, Bani Shammar
I ,
1 Cf. Cornill, Guchichle II Yolke8 Israel p. S7
et
seq., and
also
the
numbel" in
the ZBitschrift tI deutsch
Palest
Yer
xxiii, 58, which go as low i l l some instances as SOO
and
500.
, Shammar, the name of the powerful tribe occupying
to-day Mesopotamia
and
Babylon, is primarily
that
of
a mountain range in the interior of Arsbia, but in the
South Arabian inscriptions
i t
appears, accordi.Jlg
to
Hommel,
as
a personal name. Cf Hommel's essay
on Glaser's inscriptions (12S8 et seq.
in
the
FeBtschrift
f r Ebers
lag7 p.
ago
The
tribe
came ultimately, there-
fore, from South Arabia, and took
its origin
from a
man.
This
is
in keeping with tradition; cf. Zeitschrift II
deuCSch
Palest Yer
xxiii. 49 : - The Aneze Bedouins who sprang
frOm 'Anaz Ibn Wa'il,
and t ~
Shammar Bedouins who
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3 THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
and also many Old Testament tribe-names
such as Bene Hamor, Bene Abiezer, Bene
Jerahmeel
1
,
Bene Caleb,
c.,
and, further back,
the designations Bene Jacob, Bene Joseph,
and
Bene Israel,
c.
The more important consideration from our
point of view is,
that it
has now become the
custom to treat, without hesitation, such
names as Abraham, Jacob, Joseph,
c.,
partly
as tribe names, and their bearers
at
the same
time as unhistorica.l h ro s
eponymi
who
never existed partly to treat them offhand
.as ancient gods who had afterwards been
wrongly transformed into men.
It
was re
garded as a great discovery when, some
fifteen years ago, in
an
Egyptian inscrip
tion of the time of the Pharaoh Thothmes
(eire. 1500 B.
c.) the names Jacob and Joseph
(in the forms
a c o b ~ e l
and Joseph-e ) were
identified as designations of Palestinian tribes
or districts. Owing to the peculiarity
of
the
Egyptian language and of the mode of writing,
it
remained, indeed, a mere possibility tha.t the
hieroglyphics
c o n t a i n e ~
these actual names.;
are descendants of the celebrated Shammar." Cf. ibid.
xxiv. 29, note.
I.
I
Cf. the name
Jrl,lm in Ranke's
PersonBlIl Iamen
in
en
Urkunden dar ammumbiteit (1902), p. 49.
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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY
3
and, besides, several other intel pretations
were conceivable; but the joy over the dis
covery was too great for the exercise of
cl iticism. We know now
that
in
ancient.
times Jacob was
an
ordinary personal name,
-and
nothing more 1,
in
those eastern regions
fl om which, according to Israelite tradition,
the Patriarchs came. Consequently his name,
and
that
of Joseph and of the other Fathers,
came to be used in precisely the same way
for the Patriarchs of Israel.
But
what is the case in regard
to
Abra
ham 1
It
is now considered a distinguishing
mark of modem scholarship to regard him as
a Moon-god. Do not
Ur
and Hal l an, cele
brated seats of Babylonian and Assyrian
Moon-worship, stand in the closest relation
with his wanderings, and
do
not two goddesses
who are closely associated with the Moon
worship of Harran, bear the names Sarah
(Sarrat U) and Milcah (Malkat U),
that
is, Queen
and Princess1 What can be
mQre
natural,
then, than
that
Abraham, the husband of this
Sarah, and the relation of this Milcah, should
be himself the Moon-god 1 This is the old,
oft-repeated
tale, with additions, concerning
1 Ct.
Johns
Deeds
alld
Documents
vol.
iii
pp. 164, 407.
Hommel, Ancitmt Hebml Tmdition (Eng. Trans.), p. W3
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3 TIlE
BABYLONIAN EXOAVATIONS AND
t.heArabianDus re8,who,some twenty years ago,
was
put
forward as the husband of a goddess
Sarah
Dhu
in
Arabic
=
Lord),
that
is, as identi.
caJ with Abl'aham; which sounded at the time
as a sort of joke of ancient history-I should
say of fable-inasmuch as it represented Sarah,
who even according
to
Genesis was somewhat
hasty-tempered, as asserting her wifely autho
rity over her husband so far that she deprived
him even of his own designation, and caused
him to
go
down to history with her own name
only, as Dusares, that is, Husband of Sarah.
Unfortunately for this hypothesis. it turned
out afterwards that this Arabian Sarah was no
goddess at all,
but
the name of a mountain.
But joking apart, what can be concluded from
such accidental coincidences
in
sound of some
names associated with the person of Abraham,
so
long as
it
can be demonstrated that Biblical
tradition not only knows nothing of any divine
designation being involved
in
his name, or
in
that of his family, or of any divine worship
being paid to him
1
but, on the contrary, that,
both in Israel and outside it, Abram in the form
Abiram
2
and,
in
the ancient home of Israel,
1
Note
in
what a clear
and
varied manner
the
worship
of
heroes
in Ancient
Greece is attested,
and
consider
if
it
is
possible
that this
should have
vanished 80
utterly
out. of IsraeL
2
Johns, Deeds and Documents i i i II7; Hommel, Anmnt
Hebrew Tradition (Eng. version), p. 144.
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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY
33
Sarah 1 also, in the older form Sarai, as well as
Nahor
2
; a kinsman of Abraham (Gen.
ii
z3
et
seq.), were actual pel Sonal names
This point of view is supported
by
the fact
that
in
ancient times, and especially among
the Semites,
it
was not apparently the ordinary
course for gods to be made into men, but, on
the contrary, for men to
be
made into gods
s.
Gudea, one of the earliest kings of Babylon,
was honoured later, as we now know,
by
a temple and sacrifices. Sargon and other
kings are distinguished
in
the cuneiform script
by the designation for deity, and had thus
been elevated to gods. A similar custom ob
tained generally in Egypt, where the
Pharaoh
caused himself to be directly addressed as the
Sun-god. It is even high1y probable that
gods such as Bel were regarded as having
1
Bezold, Catalogue, vol. i, p. 1156. Milcah also appears
in
the
Insoription (Glaser), 11138 et seq. (See Hommel
in Ebers, p.
119.)
I Johns, op.
cit.
i i i 1117.
S For an interesting Egyptian example of this, see
K. Sathe,
Imhotep
ein
t:ergiJtlel teT
Mensch
0.,
19011.
The
celebrated Greek poet Archilochus
(circ. 650
B.O.) was in
subsequent
times
worshipped as a hero. There is even
in Arabia to-day a hero-worship. The latest instance
known to me is the celebrated Arabian traveller Burck
hardt who became a convert to Islamism, and has been
honoured since
his
death as a
Saint wert)
(Zeitschr.
d.
Deutsch.
Pal.
YeF.
1907. p. 190).
o
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34 THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
been buried, and as having thus died like
mortals,
to e
raised afterwards, through the
cult of the dead, to the position of deities.
So also
it
is highly probable
that
those enor
mous stepped towers of ancient Baby Ionia,
which served as observatories for the Chal
dean astronomers and
astrologers-and
be
came perhaps the type for the Egyptian
pyramids-were
Oliginally nothing more
than
imposing burying-places, mausolea of
gods and of kings raised to divine dignity 1.
1
This comparison is instructively illustrated by
the
case of
lIarduk
or of Osiris n Egypt), owing
to
the
solar
character
of this
deity. The
setting of the
sun is
the
death of the god, who goes
into
Hades Arallu) as his
grave, to rise again on
the
morrow,
or
in
the
Spring.
When
the
king dies,
he
proceeds, because
he
is a god,
to
the
departed
god, who is
regarded, however, as dwell
ing in the mountain of the
gods above the under-world.
These towers are thus comprehensible as representatives
of the mountain ofthe gods, that is, of tombs of the gods.
The
god is ideally represented as buried here, for people
pretend to see
and honour
his grave;
but
in reality it is
the
tomb
of
a king.
Apart
even from
the
view
that the
dead
and
buried god was once a man,
the
sequence of
thought
is thus in \ certain measure rendered clearer.
But
it
is
still
a
matter of
question whether this representl\
tion exhausts the meaning, and whether this line
of
thought
was
the
original one. In
the
case where
the
god is regarded not simply as interred under the mountain
of the gods in Hades, but as buried in the tower,
it
would
appear
that the
grave indicates much more probably the
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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY
35
In
this manner may be explained the tomb
of Osiris, as well as the many tombs of
heroes to be found in various regions, the
explanation being independent of the con
sideration whether these represented actual
or supposed burying-places. I know of no
instances on tbe other hand, in Bible regions
and outside them, where it can be proved
satisfactorily
that
a god was transformed into
a man 1.. How would it be at
a ll
possible to
actual tomb of an actual dead body,
and
thus that of
a
man
to whom divine dignity was given. I t was only
at a later period, however early this period may have
been, that theory seems.to have associated Arallu
with
the
towers. Cf. note
1
on p. 36.
1
Where
the
names of gods
are
ascribed to men,
this
is to be explained
in
the
first instance
in
historic time
at
all events) as an example of hypocoristic shortening,
that is, of so-called pet-names. Thus are to e explained
such names as Marduk in Assyria, Gad
n
Israel;
cf.
the Sanscrit Deva for Deva-datta
and
the German Theo
for Theodore. Agamemnon doubtless appears as a
desig
nation of Zeus in Greece,
and
may be thus regarded as
the
actual name of
an
ancient deity. The same is
the
ease
with
other names of early times, such as Erechtheus,
Menelaos, Helena
? SelAn ),
AchiIleus, Lycurgus perhaps
-Zeus-Lykaios).
But
the
factthat
Lycurgus
is
spoken of,
probably at the same time, as
an
historic person calls
for consideration, and shows that we have here to do
with
forms
in
which
the
mythological element
is
secondary heroes of
myth
in the first instance,
and not
of a cult). It is probable
that
they were first raised to the
divine dignity, with changed designations, through the
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36 THE
BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
explain the death of
a
god, even of
a
Sun
god, or of
a
god of the lower world,
if
not on
the assumption that he w80s in the last resort
a man, or a hero, raised to the position of
deity and worshipped in his tomb 11
The whole theory of a god called
Abrah80m
is thus intrinsica.lly improbable. As we see,
on the other hand, that the wanderings of the
8oncestor
of
Isr80el
through
Ur
and Harran
correspond with
f8octs
th80t furthermore the
name Abraham
W80s
a
current personal designa
tion
in
ancient times, and finally,
that
a
peculiarly important chapter of the Biblical
nalT8otive-Genesis
xiv-in
which Abraham
plays the chief part, hands down to us names
and circumstances which we may
c ~ i m
to be
historica.1
and which, moreover, are otherwise
cult of the dead, with which here also the ancient astral
religion may have been associated. Such forms as the
Dioscuroi, moreover, cannot be adduced as contrary in
stances. They do indeed appear in
human
form,
but
always only
ll hoc and
are never really regarded as men.
The life
and
action of
men
such as we find described
in
the cases of Menelaos andAgamemnon, are never ascribed
to
them.
1
Cf.
the case of the tomb of Minos (son of Zeus), who
was slain in Sicily, which in Crete came later to be
regarded as
the
grave of Zeus, although containing the
bones of Minos. (See Helbig
in
Roscher s
Lexicon
i i
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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY 7
known to us only through ancient inscrip
tions while they have disappeared elsewhere
we
al e
surely entitled
to
conclude
thaJ;
there
is a high probability th t Abraham was an
actual historical personage in early Hebrew
times and that . even where the account pre
sents imperfect details or partially obliterated
traces of the original circumstances a correct
reminiscence has on the whole been preserved
I am fully aware indeed that this of itself
is not sufficient to place the historical character
of Abraham beyond all doubt A convincing
proof of this nature by exact historical me
thods remains yet to
be
furnished in spite of
all that has been
and continues t be, insisted
upon: and I must recall in this connexion
the warning which I gave t the outset as
to exaggerated expectations I do not more
over belong
to
those who make the main
tenance of the personality of Abraham a
shibboleth of the Christian faith. But I a.m
all the more confident in declaring it as
my well-considered and scientific conviction
that in the present state of our knowledge
there is nothing to require us to regard
Abraham as a mythical or legendary figure
but rather th t many and strong arguments
speak clearly for the contrary. With this
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38
Tm:
BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS ND
from the purely historical point of view we
must and may well
be
content. If
we
would
look for further proofs and why as Christian
men should
we
not seek them--they are to
be
found in another domain
that
of religion.
So much in regard to historical tradition
in the stricter sense. But I must not leave
the subject without emphasizing the fact that
what has been adduced represents only a
small part of the exuberantly rich material
which ensta. Biblical tradition however is
not merely historical in
character;
it
is likewise
a tradition of religious conceptions and institu
tions. These religious elements in fact con
stitute an essential
part
of the Biblical idea of
the universe from which we learn that God
created the world that afterwards sin came
into it and that when sin got the upper hand
a great Hood broke over it;
that
God after
wards set apart for Himself amid the heathen
population a selected people and granted to
this selected people
a participation n the
pure knowledge of Himself.
Now
it
is precisely to this peculiar Biblical
conception of the universe that from the
point of view of Babylon any independent
existence is at present denied. On the
con-
trary what we had formerly regarded as dis-
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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY 9
tillctive in the Biblical conception of the
universe has been lately claimed as really
Babylonian. There is,
it
is contended, no-
thjng peculiarly Biblical
01'
Israclitish in the
scriptural tradition, nothing
that
is not Baby-
Ionian; and all
that
we have appropriated
from
it
as a
part
of our religious belief is
at
bottom outlandish mythology, Babylonian
heathenism, which
we
consequently ought to
get rid of as soon as possible.
But
is it
the case
that
what
we
have ac-
cepted about these mattei's is really a Baby-
lonian conception of the universe 1
It
is upon
this question,
in
my opinion,
that
the emphasis
lies; for that
there are Babylonian elements
in our Biblical traditions, or
at
any rate
Baby Ionian parallels to them, there can
be
no doubt.
Assuming that the
Biblical account of the
Creation and the Flood are uni versally known,
I confine myself t presenting here their
heathen
parallels:-
When on high the heavens were not yet
named, and below the firmament not
yet
de-
signated . . . then were the gods formed
thus begins the Babylonian myth of Creation.
This beginning might really
suffice but
let
us
hear the continuation:
In
the beginning
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40
THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
the chaotic waters, called Tiimat, held sway.
They were the enemies of order. As the gods
wished
to
create
from
these an orderly world,
Tiimat
arose as a dragon against thelP.
Ignominious terror seized the gods, until
Marduk, the god of the Spring-sun, undertook
to
battle with the monster and its companions.
He conquered H cut the dragon into two
halves, and made out of one the heaven,
out of the other n like manner the earth,
upon which he then brought forth animals
and men 1.
Of the Flood we read an account, as part
of a great epic, which tells us of the hero
Oilgames, and aims at giving us information
respecting Life, Death, and Hereafter. The
account of the Flood, which possibly may
once have had an independent existence, occurs
in a mere episode, and is narrated to Oil
games by Ut-napistim 2 his grandfather, to
whose presence he
had wandered in order
to
obtain immortality. Ut-napistim, called also
Xisuthros, is the Biblical Noah. Accol'ding to
Cf. Keilinschr. Bt bl., vi. 41
547.
According to Ranke, op
cit.
p. 14, Ud-Samas;
the
name is
thus
perhaps Samas-Napistim.
Cf.
also Hommel,
Die allor. D8f1km
tid
d
A
T. 1902, p.
24.
(Pinches reads
Pir-Napistim, Tr.)
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EABLY BIBLE HISTORY 41
him the great gods, Bel at their head, had re
solved to destroy mankind; but the water-god
~
through whom this was
to
be accomplished,
betrayed the plan
to
his favourite, and also told
him of a means of escape. He must build
an
ark. And now follow, in the narrative, inci
dents which have a striking resemblance to,and
in
many cases are
in
almost verbal coincidence
with, the account in Genesis. The waters
rise; he enters, along with his family, into
the ship;
it
is driven upon a high mountain,
Nizir; he sends out a dove, which, finding no
resting-place, returns, c.
Even if it were possible-though hardly
with good
reason to
remain doubtful on the
subject
in
reference to the story of Creation,
it is at least manifest that certain elements in
the account of the Flood al e connected with
the Biblical narrative, This has been known
for a long time, and for many years past has
./
formed a subject for discussion
in
all our
theological lecture-rooms.
The only question
we
have to discuss
is,
how is it
to be
explained 1 An easy answer
is ready at hand, The whole account, exactly
as it had been here written down, found its
way,
it
is alleged, to Canaan
:
here
it
was
1 Delitzsch,
abel
nil Bibel p. 31,
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42 THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
somewhat modified-to its disadvantage in
deed and
thus arose the Biblical tradition.
In
this case
it
is therefore natural as has beel\
lately said with more daring than felicity
that the Babylonian form should be the purer
and more primitive
1
and hence
it
would
seem to
be
demonstrated that the early Bible
history is nothing more than a fragment
deplorably misunderstood and distorted out of
shape
bOlTowed
from Babylonian Paganism.
This might perhaps be tenable
if
the case
were one of a general agreement between the
two accounts with some unimportant diver
gences or even misunderstandings; but not
when as the case stands the differences in
volved are
n
reality the
most
essential part
of the matter. These differences show
that
we
are on entirely different ground and that even
n instances where the words may be the same
another and altogether different spirit breathes
in them. Weare in a sphere differing toto
coelo
from
that
of
Babylon it is
quite another
world; there
it
is the sphere of a heathen
nature-worship with all its concomitants
here
it
is
that
of a revealed and monotheistic
religion.
The beginning of the Babylonian Creation-
1
Delitzsch
Babel
un Bibel
p 29.
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EARLY BIBLE mSTORY 4
epic sounds like an extract from Hesiod's
theogony. Cosmogony and theogony con
verge together; that is the deity himself
comes into existence first; he is himself an
element of nature and arises with it and
from
it. And furthermore, the creation of
the world is represented as the issue of
a conflict between the deity and opposing
nature, which
is
described as a dangerous ad
versary. This is the Babylonian view. -In
the other, on the contrary, the Spirit of God
the creative Will and Omnipotent Word, ap
pears as the sovel'eign Lord over Nature-and
there is nothing of opposition and conflict.
Bere, moreover,
we
have an act of grace,
haVing as its aim a long sacred history, and
not a nature-myth of the ocean and the vernal
sun I
The same is the case with the account of
the Flood.
n
the one case
we
have a fatal
judgement of Bel
hanging
over mankind
no one knows exactly why: if they have
sinned,
it
is urged
by
the other gods
in
the
way of criticism, let the guilty and the guilty
1 Many think that we have here to do
with
a direct
opposition, as K6berle
in the
AUg. Ev.-Luth. Kirch. Zeit.
1902
p.
627: .
They tell fables of Marduk's
battle; he
endeavours
to
show how God, thtl only living God, ill
in truth the Creator.
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44
THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS
AND
only be punished-and the rescue of a single
individual by the blind caprice of Eo.; in
the other the holy ruling of a
just
Judge.
n the one case discord and disunion among
the gods themselves one of them endeavour
ing to outwit the others; the terror of the
gods as the waters
rise-as
dogs
it
is said
they crouch down and Istar cries aloud for
fear as a woman in travail; then further on
the animal-greed over the meat-offering-as
flies it is said they collect around the sacri
fice-not
to speak of many worse things con
tained in other places of the epic
1.
On the
other hand we have the dignified self-posses
sion and the sacred calm of One Who knows
that
He must act as He does for the sake of
the holy standard which He Himself has given
to the world.
t will be seen at once from these considera
tions
that we
have to
do
with an independent
form either brought to Canaan from Babylon
or representing a tradition shared with the
latter by Israel and thus in
the
last analysis
1 Events and circumstances which elsewhere are in
dustriously veiled
are
broadly
treated with
too cynical
an
openness for ur feelings.
Even
i f it were a
matter
. of representing such things symbolically
in
a myth the
method must appear strange. We may compare with
this the moral indignation at the conduct of Ham.
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EARLY BmLE HISTORY 5
derived from one original. According to the
first hypothesis, the tl ansformation of the
received material implies at the same time a
thorough purifying and refining of it; Which
of the two hypotheses is correct cannot be
determined with absolute certainty.
But even if the former hypothesis be ac-
cepted, as many
do
we have not done with
the matter
by supposing as
Fried. Delitzsch
says n regard to the Biblical account of the
Creation that the priestly Israelite scribe,
who transcribed the Babylonian epic, re-
stricted himself
to
the removal of the mytho-
logical features
1.
What a purely external
representation
of
the circumstances I But even
assuming this to have been the course pursued,
the scribe was not content with merely putting
away these features, he disallowed them alto-
gether; he laid strong hands upon his material,
reforming and reconstructing it; and there
can be no question
that
such a rejection or
complete transformation of mythological ideas
would imply a far more pregnant and original
c ~
of genius than
that
involved
n
their first
conception I .
But I am forced
to
reject this whole method
1 Delltzsch, op. cit. p. 34.
t
Cf. KOberle,
op cit. coL
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6 THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
of representation, as though an Israelite or
Jewish priest had handled the Babylonian
records after the manner of a modem editor,
borrowing
a piece here, omitting a passage
there, and supplying another in its place. t
may, indeed, have been the case, as certain
indications show
1,
that. even in early times in
the far west, and thus also in Palestine, Baby-
lonian records had been carefully studied
2;
and this,
if
a fact, may explain the presence
of verbal coincidences n the two traditions-
the Biblical and the Babylonian. Literary
activity, and for aught I know to the con-
trary, the student's closet, may perhaps
have thus influenced the formulating of the
documents; but the material and the spirit
which gave it shape did not proceed from
thence. It is also possible that those are
quite right who say that
the
Babylonian
account made its way, exactly as it was
written down, to Canaan. Why should not
this be the case considering the active mental
intercourse in these regions, and that too at a
very early date 1 But this does not solve the
1
Cf. Niebuhr,
Die Amarnazeit
p. 4 and Delitzsch,op.
cit.
p.
89.
II Genesis, chap. xiv., may be explained
in the
same
way.
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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY 7
problem, for the phenomena in question re
main unexplained.
This much is clear: with aU
their points
of contact, the two traditions are so entirely
different, that we can only assume that each
of them must have had a long way to travel
from the time of their separation. Nothing
but an independent development, for centuries
long, of the two formerly united streams can
explain the phenomena. Here we come for
the first time into close contact with our
subject, and to a point where it becomes clear
that the student s closet and the editor s
table even in
the case in which their joint
action may have been possib1e-are insufficient
to explain the matter. No doubt we should
have at our disposal such a long course of
development if we could assume, as many
now
do
_hat the material had wandered far
and wide in the Tel-el-Amarna period, had
afterwards been recast in Israel, and been
reduced to writing later on
in
its new form
1.
I will not say that this explanation, which
receives support from other considerations,
is untenable, although
it
is attended with
the difficulty
that
Israel must in this case
1
This is
the
position taken up, in all essentials,
y
Zimmern, Gunkel, Oettli,
0.
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8
THE
BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND
have obtained the material through the instru
mentality of the Canaanites; a circumstance
which is not indeed without analogy but
which
if
assumed is also exposed t objec