




                            The Old Testament

                             In the Light of

                    The Historical Records and Legends

                         of Assyria and Babylonia

                                    By

                          Theophilus G. Pinches

                             LL.D., M.R.A.S.

           Published under the direction of the Tract Committee

             Third Edition--Revised, With Appendices and Notes

                                 London:

                Society For Promoting Christian Knowledge

                                   1908





CONTENTS


Foreword
Chapter I. The Early Traditions Of The Creation.
Chapter II. The History, As Given In The Bible, From The Creation To The
Flood.
Chapter III. The Flood.
   Appendix. The Second Version Of The Flood-Story.
Chapter IV. Assyria, Babylonia, And The Hebrews, With Reference To The
So-Called Genealogical Table.
   The Tower Of Babel.
   The Patriarchs To Abraham.
Chapter V. Babylonia At The Time Of Abraham.
   The Religious Element.
   The King.
   The People.
   "Year of Samas and Rimmon."
Chapter VI. Abraham.
   Salem.
Chapter VII. Isaac, Jacob, And Joseph.
Chapter VIII. The Tel-El-Amarna Tablets And The Exodus.
Chapter IX. The Nations With Whom The Israelites Came Into Contact.
   Amorites.
   Hittites.
   Jebusites.
   Girgashites.
   Moabites.
Chapter X. Contact Of The Hebrews With The Assyrians.
   Sennacherib.
   Esarhaddon.
   Assur-Bani-Apli.
Chapter XI. Contact Of The Hebrews With The Later Babylonians.
Chapter XII. Life At Babylon During The Captivity, With Some Reference To
The Jews.
Chapter XIII. The Decline Of Babylon.
Appendix. The Stele Inscribed With The Laws Of Hammurabi.
Appendix To The Third Edition.
Notes And Additions.
Index.
Footnotes






                                [Plate I.]

    Bas-relief and inscription of Hammurabi, generally regarded as the
 Biblical Amraphel (Gen. xiv. 1), apparently dedicated for the saving of
his life. In this he bears the title (incomplete) of "King of Amoria" (the
Amorites), _lugal Mar[tu]_, Semitic Babylonian _sar mat Amurri_ (see page
                                  315).


"There is a charm in finding ourselves, our common humanity, our puzzles,
our cares, our joys, in the writings of men severed from us by race,
religion, speech, and half the gulf of historical time, which no other
literary pleasure can equal."--ANDREW LANG.





FOREWORD


The present work, being merely a record of things for the most part well
known to students and others, cannot, on that account, contain much that
is new. All that has been aimed at is, to bring together as many of the
old discoveries as possible in a new dress.

It has been thought well to let the records tell their story as far as
possible in their own way, by the introduction of translations, thus
breaking the monotony of the narrative, and also infusing into it an
element of local colour calculated to bring the reader into touch, as it
were, with the thoughts and feelings of the nations with whom the records
originated. Bearing, as it does, upon the life, history, and legends of
the ancient nations of which it treats, controversial matter has been
avoided, and the higher criticism left altogether aside.

Assyriology (as the study of the literature and antiquities of the
Babylonians and Assyrians is called) being a study still in the course of
development, improvements in the renderings of the inscriptions will
doubtless from time to time be made, and before many months have passed,
things now obscure may have new light thrown upon them, necessitating the
revision of such portions as may be affected thereby. It is intended to
utilize in future editions any new discoveries which may come to light,
and every effort will be made to keep the book up to date.

For shortcomings, whether in the text or in the translations, the author
craves the indulgence of the reader, merely pleading the difficult and
exacting nature of the study, and the lengthy chronological period to
which the book refers.

A little explanation is probably needful upon the question of
pronunciation. The vowels in Assyro-Babylonian should be uttered as in
Italian or German. _H_ is a strong guttural like the Scotch _ch_ in
"loch"; _m_ had sometimes the pronunciation of _w_, as in Tiamtu (=
Tiawthu), so that the spelling of some of the words containing that letter
may later have to be modified. The pronunciation of _s_ and _s_ is
doubtful, but Assyriologists generally (and probably wrongly) give the
sound of _s_ to the former and _sh_ to the latter. _T_ was often
pronounced as _th_, and probably always had that sound in the feminine
endings _-tu_, _-ti_, _-ta_, or _at_, so that Tiamtu, for instance, may be
pronounced Tiawthu, Tukulti-apil-Esarra (Tiglath-pileser),
Tukulthi-apil-Esarra, etc., etc., and in such words as _qata_, "the
hands," _sumati_, "names," and many others, this was probably always the
case. In the names Abil-Addu-nathanu and Nathanu-yawa this transcription
has been adopted, and may be regarded as correct. _P_ was likewise often
aspirated, assuming the sound of _ph_ or _f_, and _k_ assumed, at least in
later times, a sound similar to _h (kh)_, whilst _b_ seems sometimes to
have been pronounced as _v_. _G_ was, to all appearance, never soft, as in
_gem_, but may sometimes have been aspirated. Each member of the group
_ph_ is pronounced separately. _T_ is an emphatic _t_, stronger than in
the word "time." A terminal _m_ represents the _mimmation_, which, in
later times, though written, was not pronounced.


    The second edition, issued in 1903, was revised and brought up to
    date, and a translation of the Laws of Hammurabi, with notes, and
    a summary of Delitzsch's _Babel und Bibel_, were appended. For the
    third edition the work has again been revised, with the help of
    the recently-issued works of King, Sayce, Scheil, Winckler, and
    others. At the time of going to press, the author was unable to
    consult Knudtzon's new edition of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets beyond
    his No. 228, but wherever it was available, improvements in the
    translations were made. In addition to revision, the Appendix has
    been supplemented by paragraphs upon the discoveries at
    Boghaz-Keui, a mutilated letter from a personage named Belshazzar,
    and translations of the papyri referring to the Jewish temple at
    Elephantine.

    New material may still be expected from the excavations in
    progress at Babylon, Susa, Hattu, and various other sites in the
    nearer East.


THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES.





CHAPTER I. THE EARLY TRADITIONS OF THE CREATION.


    The Hebrew account--Its principal points--The Babylonian account--The
    story of the Creation properly so called--The version given by the
    Greek authors--Comparison of the Hebrew and the Greek accounts--The
    likenesses--The differences--Bel and the Dragon--The
    epilogue--Sidelights (notes upon the religion of the Babylonians).




To find out how the world was made, or rather, to give forth a theory
accounting for its origin and continued existence, is one of the subjects
that has attracted the attention of thinking minds among all nations
having any pretension to civilization. It was, therefore, to be expected
that the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians, far advanced in civilization
as they were at an exceedingly early date, should have formed opinions
thereupon, and placed them on record as soon as those opinions were
matured, and the art of writing had been perfected sufficiently to enable
a serviceable account to be composed.

This, naturally, did not take place all at once. We may take it for
granted that the history of the Creation grew piece by piece, as different
minds thought over and elaborated it. The first theories we should expect
to find more or less improbable--wild stories of serpents and gods,
emblematic of the conflicting powers of good and evil, which, with them,
had their origin before the advent of mankind upon the earth.

But all men would not have the same opinion of the way in which the
universe came into existence, and this would give rise, as really happened
in Babylonia, to conflicting accounts or theories, the later ones less
improbable than, and therefore superior to, the earlier. The earlier
Creation-legend, being a sort of heroic poem, would remain popular with
the common people, who always love stories of heroes and mighty conflicts,
such as those in which the Babylonians and Assyrians to the latest times
delighted, and of which the Semitic Babylonian Creation-story consists.

As the ages passed by, and the newer theories grew up, the older popular
ones would be elaborated, and new ideas from the later theories of the
Creation would be incorporated, whilst, at the same time, mystical
meanings would be given to the events recorded in the earlier legends to
make them fit in with the newer ones. This having been done, the scribes
could appeal at the same time to both ignorant and learned, explaining how
the crude legends of the past were but a type of the doctrines put forward
by the philosophers of later and more enlightened days, bringing within
the range of the intellect of the unlearned all those things in which the
more thoughtful spirits also believed. By this means an enlightened
monotheism and the grossest polytheism could, and did, exist side by side,
as well as clever and reasonable cosmologies along with the strangest and
wildest legends.

Thus it is that we have from the literature of two closely allied peoples,
the Babylonians and the Hebrews, accounts of the Creation of the world so
widely differing, and, at the same time, possessing, here and there,
certain ideas in common--ideas darkly veiled in the old Babylonian story,
but clearly expressed in the comparatively late Hebrew account.

It must not be thought, however, that the above theory as to the origin of
the Hebrew Creation-story interferes in any way with the doctrine of its
inspiration. We are not bound to accept the opinion so generally held by
theologians, that the days of creation referred to in Genesis i. probably
indicate that each act of creation--each day--was revealed in seven
successive dreams, in order, to the inspired writer of the book. The
opinion held by other theologians, that "inspiration" simply means that
the writer was moved by the Spirit of God to choose from documents already
existing such portions as would serve for our enlightenment and
instruction, adding, at the same time, such additions of his own as he was
led to think to be needful, may be held to be a satisfactory definition of
the term in question.

Without, therefore, binding ourselves down to any hard and fast line as to
date, we may regard, for the purposes of this inquiry, the Hebrew account
of the Creation as one of the traditions handed down in the thought of
many minds extending over many centuries, and as having been chosen and
elaborated by the inspired writer of Genesis for the purpose of his
narrative, the object of which was to set forth the origin of man and the
Hebrew nation, to which he belonged, and whose history he was about to
narrate in detail.

The Hebrew story of the Creation, as detailed in Genesis i., may be
regarded as one of the most remarkable documents ever produced. It must
not be forgotten, however, that it is a document that is essentially
Hebrew. For the author of this book the language of God and of the first
man was Hebrew--a literary language, showing much phonetic decay. The
retention of this matter (its omission not being essential at the period
of the composition of the book) is probably due, in part, to the natural
patriotism of the writer, overruling what ought to have been his inspired
common-sense. How this is to be explained it is not the intention of the
writer of this book to inquire, the account of the Creation and its
parallels being the subject in hand at present.

The question of language apart, the account of the Creation in Genesis is
in the highest degree a common-sense one. The creation of (1) the heaven,
and (2) the earth; the darkness--not upon the face of the earth, but upon
the face of the deep. Then the expansion dividing the waters above from
the waters below on the earth. In the midst of this waste of waters dry
land afterwards appears, followed by the growth of vegetation. But the sun
and the moon had not yet been appointed, nor the stars, all of which come
into being at this point. Last of all are introduced the living things of
the earth--fish, and bird, and creeping thing, followed by the animals,
and, finally, by man.

It is noteworthy and interesting that, in this account, the acts of
creation are divided into seven periods, each of which is called a "day,"
and begins, like the natural day in the time-reckoning of the Semitic
nations, with the evening--"and it was evening, and it was morning, day
one." It describes what the heavenly bodies were for--they were not only to
give light upon the earth--they were also for signs, for seasons, for days,
and for years.

And then, concerning man, a very circumstantial account is given. He was
to have dominion over everything upon the earth--the fish of the sea, the
fowl of the air, the cattle, and every creeping thing. All was given to
him, and he, like the creatures made before him, was told to "be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth." It is with this crowning work of
creation that the first chapter of the Book of Genesis ends.

The second chapter refers to the seventh day--the day of rest, and is
followed by further details of the creation, the central figure of which
is the last thing created, namely, man. This chapter reads, in part, like
a recapitulation of the first, but contains many additional details. "No
plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb... had sprung up:
for the Lord God had not caused it to rain..., and there was not a man to
till the ground." A mist, therefore, went up from the earth, and watered
all the face of the ground. Then, to till the earth, man was formed from
the dust of the ground, and the Lord God "breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and man became a living soul."

The newly-created man was, at this time, innocent, and was therefore to be
placed by his Creator in a garden of delight, named Eden, and this garden
he was to dress and keep. A hidden danger, however, lay in this pleasant
retreat--the tree of knowledge of good and evil, of which he was forbidden
to eat, but which was to form for him a constant temptation, for ever
testing his obedience. All might have been well, to all appearance, but
for the creation of woman, who, giving way to the blandishments of the
tempter, in her turn tempted the man, and he fell. Death in the course of
nature was the penalty, the earthly paradise was lost, and all chance of
eating of the tree of life, and living for ever, disappeared on man's
expulsion from his first abode of delight.

In the course of this narrative interesting details are given--the four
rivers, the country through which they flowed, and their precious mineral
products; the naming of the various animals by the man; the forming of
woman from one of his ribs; the institution of marriage, etc.

Such is, in short, the story of the Creation as told in the Bible, and it
is this that we have to compare with the now well-known parallel accounts
current among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians. And here may be noted
at the outset that, though we shall find some parallels, we shall, in the
course of our comparison, find a far greater number of differences, for
not only were they produced in a different land, by a different people,
but they were also produced under different conditions. Thus, Babylonian
polytheism takes the place of the severe and uncompromising monotheism of
the Hebrew account in Genesis; Eden was, to the Babylonians, their own
native land, not a country situated at a remote distance; and, lastly, but
not least, their language, thoughts, and feelings differed widely from
those of the dwellers in the Holy Land.

The Babylonian story of the Creation is a narrative of great interest to
all who occupy themselves with the study of ancient legends and folklore.
It introduces us not only to exceedingly ancient beliefs concerning the
origin of the world on which we live, but it tells us also of the
religion, or, rather, the religious beliefs, of the Babylonians, and
enables us to see something of the changes which those beliefs underwent
before adopting the form in which we find them at the time this record was
composed.

A great deal has been written about the Babylonian story of the Creation.
As is well known, the first translation of these documents was by him who
first discovered their nature, the late George Smith, who gave them to the
world in his well-known book, _The Chaldean Account of Genesis_, in 1875.
Since that time numerous other translations have appeared, not only in
England, but also on the Continent. Among those who have taken part