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and his wife and the people to be like the gods were carried away, then dwelt Sisit in a remote place at the mouth of the rivers."

In attempting to put a fair value upon this ancient fragment, it will be necessary to avoid two extremes. It would be a mistake, on the one hand, to regard it in the light of a genuine historical document, confirming Scripture by virtue of its own independent authority, and entitled on that account to be placed on a level with it. On the other hand, it would be equally erroneous to treat it merely as an antiquarian relic, so utterly devoid of value or importance to the student of Scripture that it may safely be classed with the loose popular traditions of the Flood, which are to be found floating about in almost all parts of the world. A just appreciation of the facts of the case will probably incline us to believe that the truth lies mid-way between these conflicting points of view.

When we reflect upon what is actually necessary to give real historical weight to any document, the idea of claiming for this inscription a position of authority equal to that of Scripture cannot for a moment be entertained. To be strictly historical, it would require to have been written either by eye-witnesses of the events described, or by adequately informed contemporaries, or, at the very lowest, by men of the next generation deriving their information from eye-witnesses or contemporaries. Everything, however, like proof of the possession of any of these requisites by the writer of the inscription, is absolutely wanting. Various circumstances might be adduced in proof of its high antiquity; but, strong as these undoubtedly are, they are not sufficiently definite to prove its historical quality. They do not carry the case far enough back to place it beyond contradiction in the region of contemporary evidence, or in anything approaching it. Besides, it is evident that no contemporary account would exhibit, as this legend does, on its surface, the fantastic paraphernalia of a full-blown pagan mythology. Such a marked religious declension could hardly have been consummated in the generations immediately succeeding the Flood, but must have involved a lapse of time sufficient for the growth of a false religion, yet not so protracted as to extinguish in the popular mind the broad leading outlines of the event.

Yet, whilst we cannot claim for this document the full credibility of a properly authenticated history, it would be unjust to place it on the same footing as the common traditions of other lands. It possesses specific claims of its own, which entitle it to considerably higher respect than what we are wont to pay to those wild medleys of fable and romance which mark the prehistoric age of uncivilized nations. These claims are based, first, on its great antiquity; second, on the land of its birth; and third, on its unique harmony with the leading statements of Scripture. First, as regards its antiquity, we must remember that, though the inscription cannot boast the highest antiquity possible, its age is admitted on all hands to be very high indeed. Scholars versed in the cuneiform literature have no hesitation in assigning it to a period not later than the seventeenth century before the Christian era. In proof of this, they point to the antique form of the characters, some of which are described as having been so completely beyond the knowledge of the Assyrian copyist, that he was obliged to leave them untranslated, and transfer them to his version exactly as they stood in the original. No other tradition of the Deluge current among other peoples can be shown to have been committed to writing so early as this appears to have been. The acknowledged age of the record therefore constitutes a claim which cannot be altogether ignored.

In the second place, its weight is considerably augmented by a consideration of the place from which it sprang. Of all the regions of the globe, the eastern portion of Asia Minor is the spot where a correct knowledge of that great event, which had ushered in a new era in the world's history, would be likely to linger longest in the memory of the inhabitants. If any of Noah's immediate descendants could be expected to know more about the history of their ancestor than others, it would assuredly be those who remained in the neighbourhood of the region in which the ark finally rested, and whose reminiscences of the occurrence must have been intensified by the natural features of the locality. When we consider, for example, that Nineveh lay in the line of the Tigris, at a distance of little more than two hundred miles from the southern slopes of Mount Ararat, and

that by means of that great stream communication between the palaces of the city and the hunting forests of the mountain was at once rapid and direct, we can readily understand the vivid freshness with which the natives of Mesopotamia could realize in imagination the details of the story of the Deluge. The bold sportsmen of Nineveh, who wandered from time to time up the river's side in pursuit of their favourite game, would doubtless occasionally pass within sight of Mount Ararat; and with the strange old story ringing in their ears, they could scarcely look up to its snow-clad peaks without bringing away fresher and deeper impressions of its truth than they had ever had before. If, then, there be any weight in local association, this legend is of some value to the reader of Scripture, in so far as it embodies the opinion entertained of the event by the races most likely to hear and know the truth regarding it.

But, in the third place, the age and birth-place of the legend derive additional importance from its extraordinary similarity in essentials to the statement of the sacred writer. This similarity is so striking, that, in spite of all divergences on lesser points, one fee's himself irresistibly compelled to raise the inscription to a much higher platform than that on which the vague and feeble echoes of a common-place tradition are generally placed. If the reader of the classical myths were so disposed, he would find no great difficulty in believing that the deluge they profess to describe is something totally different from the Deluge of Noah. The fanciful embellishments of the story are so numerous in the classical writers, and the points of contact between them and Moses so few and insignificant, that the supposition of their referring to two separate occurrences would be by ⚫ no means unreasonable. In the present instance, however, such a conclusion is barely possible. It is not at all easy for an unprejudiced reader to rid himself of the impression that the same event forms the grand subject-matter both of the legend and of Scripture. No one, of course, will deny that, in point of precision of statement and careful attention to chronological details, the inscription falls very far short of the sacred volume; yet, notwithstanding this palpable contrast, it seems clear that, in essence at least, the two narra

tives are identical, and contain a common substratum of fact, which remains entirely unaffected by differences of detail. To persuade ourselves of their substantial unanimity, we have only to run a parallel between the great outstanding points on which the two statements coincide. Both, for instance, agree in asserting that the world, for great moral ends, was overwhelmed by a deluge of tremendous extent and violence; that, with certain specified exceptions, all animal life perished from the face of the earth; that the exceptions were limited to a single human family, and a certain number of lower animals; that the head of the chosen family was, in obedience to a divine warning, saved by means of a vessel which rode out the storm; that the vessel of refuge settled on a mountain after the fury of the tempest was spent; that the test of birds was employed to ascertain the subsidence of the waters; and, lastly, that after the restoration of the earth to its previous condition, God and man met in friendly intercourse, an altar being raised and a sacrifice offered on the one side, and a covenant solemnly ratified on the other.

The simple enumeration of this long line of coincidences reveals an amount of harmony which has never hitherto been displayed on the same subject, and should make us cautious in forming an opinion of the worth of the legend. If it cannot be regarded in a strictly critical point of view as historically confirming Scripture, we have still a right to accept it as illustrating and supporting the sacred narrative on grounds peculiarly its own. And though these grounds may not rise to the dignity of historical veracity, they are yet such as to create in its behalf a strong presumption of general correctness.

But the question here presents itself-How is this general impression of correctness affected by the differences of detail apparent in the legend? In taking account of these divergences, it should not be forgotten, that whilst we are perfectly entitled to claim whatever light the legend may throw on Scripture, we are not thereby bound to accept all the external difficulties with which it is burdened. Keeping in view the plainly mythical accompaniments of the story, we have a clear right to reject its statements whenever they come into collision with the Old Testament history,

how unreasonable it would be to burden Scripture with difficulties for which the special circumstances connected with the transmission of the legend are alone responsible.

and to accept them only in so far as they agree | When, therefore, we reflect on the number of therewith. This attitude of independence is changes the original names must have undergone amply justified by a regard to the real nature in the course of repeated, and perhaps not always of the differences themselves, as well as by the very correct, translations of a language which had variety of ways in which they may be quite satis-long previously become obsolete, we can perceive factorily accounted for. The most important of these differences may be reduced to two principal classes those having reference to names, and those having reference to numbers. As regards those which refer to a change of name-such as Nizir for Ararat, and Sisit for Noah-something must be laid to the account of our confessedly imperfect acquaintance with the Assyrian tongue. The cuneiform alphabet is a very large and cumbrous onethe number of its known characters falling little short of three hundred. A high authority informs us that there remains, in addition, "a considerable number which are either wholly unknown, or of which the meaning is known, while the phonetic value cannot at present be determined. M. Oppert's catalogue contains fourteen of the former, and fifty-nine of the latter class." An apposite illustration of the truth of this observation is furnished by the difficulty felt by Mr. George Smith in translating the name of the central hero of the present legend. "The name of the monarch written in monograms he has been unable to read phonetically, and he therefore provisionally calls him by the signs of his name-Izdubar." We cannot, therefore, be surprised that, in the present defective state of our knowledge, considerable discrepancies should now and again emerge in the department of proper names, which, even in the case of languages that are perfectly familiar, are constantly liable to the strangest transformations. The commonest experience will testify that a favourite name may be so manipulated by affection, caprice, haste, or other causes, as to come out completely metamorphosed by the process. And if this is the case with familiar names, it holds good in ten-fold stronger measure with those belonging to a foreign tongue. Those who have witnessed the pain and trouble it costs an uneducated native of the south of Europe to pronounce a harsh Teutonic name, and who have, perhaps, stood aghast at the curiously mutilated shape in which the word left the speaker's lips, will doubtless quite appreciate the force of this remark.

Again, as regards differences in numbers, we would do well to consider that there is hardly any subject on which the memory shows itself so treacherous as on that of dates and figures. It is notorious that some minds have such an aversion to the retention of numbers, that nothing slips so readily from their grasp. And if this is characteristic of the educated intellect of modern times, we need not be surprised to learn that the undisciplined tribes of a primitive era laboured under the same difficulty to a much greater extent, more especially when deprived of the aid of written memorials. It would be the height of folly to expect that men who were dependent for their knowledge on the shifting forms of oral tradition should be strong in matters of statistics. Moreover, even after the story had been committed to writing, the special circumstances of the case must have prevented it from remaining in an unalterably fixed condition. Besides the mistakes naturally arising from the ignorance of translators, and the blunders of copyists, the curious and complicated system of reckoning in use among the Chaldæans would doubtless contribute to introduce important changes. Their arithmetical processes, we learn, were managed by means of two signs-the wedge and the arrow-head, which stood for 1 and 10 respectively-all' other numbers being formed by varieties or combina tions of these two alone. They had no separate form, so far as appears, for expressing the cipher; so that the amount of confusion which consequently arose could not but be very serious. The chances of the numerical details of the legend being gradually misunderstood or altered were, under such circumstances, greatly multiplied, and go a long way to account in the general for the amount of difference which appears between the two narratives.

But whatever weight may be assigned to such

trates the desperate nature of the emergency, and
fully harmonizes with the general spirit of the
sententious utterance of Holy Writ:
"It re-
pented the Lord that he had made man upon
the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."

considerations, these discrepancies are, in a measure, met and balanced by the number and variety of minute coincidences which a close examination of the two accounts brings now and again to light. Our space does not permit us to do more than glance, in closing, at a few of the A third coincidence connects itself with the form more interesting and striking among them. The of the ark. The translator of the inscription has first to which we would call attention, is the pointed out that the two narratives belong to totally common statement made by both documents of distinct peoples. "The Biblical account," according the penal character of the calamity. Both Bible to him, "is the version of an inland people; the and legend agree in recording that the cause of name of the ark in Genesis means a chest or box, the catastrophe was to be found in the general and not a ship; there is no notice of the sea or of wickedness and corruption of the human race. launching, no pilots are spoken of, no navigation But whilst they are at one as to this broad fact, is mentioned. The inscription, on the other hand, nothing can be more deeply suggestive than the belongs to a maritime people; the ark is called a way in which the case is put by the two writers. ship; the ship is launched into the sea; trial is In Genesis the sin of man is placed in the fore-made of it, and it is given in charge of a pilot." ground of the narrative, and solemnly reiterated If this statement of the diverse origin of the two in what to some may appear an almost super-narratives be received as in the main correct, it fluous variety of forms, as the ground of the shows that the Chaldæan tradition had materially divine anger and the cause of the impending deviated from the primitive history, and had taken ruin. In the inscription, on the other hand, the a decided colouring from the habits and associasubject of man's wickedness is but sparingly and tions of the people to whom it owed its final incidentally touched upon, and is dealt with in form. We know that the primitive Chaldæan setsuch a pointless, unimpressive manner, that the tlers clustered round the head of the Persian grand moral lesson which it is fitted to convey Gulf, and that, by virtue of this commanding comes in greatly diminished volume, and falls situation and their magnificent river communicasomewhat feebly on the reader's mind. It seems tion with the interior, they soon rose into importclear that, by the time the legend was written, ance as a commercial people; yet, in spite of this the Biblical conception of the evil of sin had al- circumstance, there occur throughout the legend ready undergone material change. Still, not- stray references to a state of things not strictly withstanding this result, the vestiges of right maritime, but still very curiously fitting in with notions which linger in the inscription are suffi- the inland theory of the origin of the Scripture hisciently marked to illustrate the unity of the sub- tory. This incongruity emerges at the very outset, ject described by the two writers. where mention is made of the "palace being given into the hand of the pilot." In this strange expression there is manifestly some confusion of idea involved, and we are at once prompted to ask-What can a pilot have to do with the management of a palace whilst engaged in the drama-business of navigating his ship? This is a difficulty which does not readily admit of explanation, so long as we adhere to the purely maritime view of the form of the ark, in accordance with which it is regarded as an ordinary sea-going craft. The propriety of the allusion becomes more apparent, if we accept the popular theory of the form of the ark, and regard it as a huge composite structure, half boat and half house,

Another point of agreement, closely connected with the foregoing, is the representation of the wrath of Heaven on account of man's sin. Bel is described in the legend as filled with rage, and declaring, "Let not any one come out alive; let not a man be saved from the deep." The tic force of the statement is considerably enhanced by the introduction of the inferior deities, who are brought before us in somewhat contradictory terms, now as crouching down like dogs; now as seated on their celestial thrones; and again as pleading with Bel to mitigate the severity of his judgment. The whole scene, grotesque though it be in some of its lesser touches, vividly illus

which, for the purposes of safe navigation, would | demand the control of one supreme will. The cropping up of this idea of a house or palace, in the very heart of a maritime description, plainly points to the inland source from which the rough material of the story was first derived, and consequently bears out, in a rather remarkable way, the Biblical mode of stating the case.

This view is still further corroborated by the reference made, both in the legend and in Genesis, to the act of shutting in the chosen family just before the storm burst. "I entered to the midst of the ship, and shut my door,"-so runs the inscription: whilst the sacred writer asserts that "the Lord shut him in." Taking the inland or Biblical view of the ark as a coffer-shaped vessel, with a side entrance, we can easily understand the propriety of this act of shutting in. But every one must admit there is on the face of it a degree of awkwardness in referring this act to a ship of ordinary construction. People do not commonly open and shut doors when they go on board ship. It is, of course, possible to conceive there may have been in the roof or on deck some sort of opening in the shape of a window or hatchway, which would admit of being closed in the manner described. But in that case some other word than that actually employed would have been chosen to designate the means of closing the aperture. Besides, it is extremely improbable that so laborious a process of embarkation as an entrance from the roof must have involved, would be selected for admitting the unprecedented, and in many respects unmanageable, cargo with which the ark was freighted, when the whole arrangement could have been at once simplified by an opening in the side of the ship. On these and other grounds, we are disposed to think that the inscription in this particular refers to a vessel of mixed build; and that the writer, in doing so, breaks loose, perhaps unconsciously, from the naval traditions and forms of expression which predominate in the legend.

Lastly, the universality of the Deluge, so emphatically maintained in Scripture, is implied in the general rather than directly taught by the inscription. Perhaps the best proof of this much disputed point is to be found in the height to which the waters can be proved to have risen;

and on this head Scripture, science, and the legend are all agreed. Scripture is most explicit in declaring that "all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered"-a statement which, however strong and perhaps exaggerated it may appear, receives ample confirmation from the discovery of fossil remains of plants and animals on the highest Andes and Himalayas. Cuvier and other savants of distinguished rank have frankly accepted this as evidence of the total submersion of the globe. The incidental expressions of the inscription lead to a similar conclusion: "The raging of the storm arose, from the horizon of heaven extending and wide: the flood of Vul reached to heaven: and in heaven the gods feared the tempest and sought refuge." After making due allowance for the rhetorical form of the language, we seem to be warranted in assuming that something more than a local or partial disaster is referred to here, the flood of waters having risen to such a height as to render all life on the earth's surface impossible. By no other feasible method of interpretation can we understand the propriety of representing the gods as taking refuge in heaven, except on the supposition of the waters having reached the highest elevations, and so rendered the earth, over its whole surface, untenable both by gods and men. The wonderful similarity of the terms made use of to describe the fatal effects of the Deluge points in the same direction. Thus, on comparing the words of the inscription" It destroyed all life from the face of the earth"-with the assertion of Genesis, that every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground," we obtain a fresh illustration at once of the wide-spread character of the occurrence, and of the essential harmony pervading the two accounts.

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An eminent writer has, with equal truth and beauty, observed that the further these Oriental researches have been carried, old Scripture difficulties have in succession disappeared, but no new ones have been created. This observation is peculiarly true of the legend which has now occupied our attention. It is true that certain minor difficulties have emerged here and there; but the sheer impossibility of proving the historical character of the document at once relieves the student of Scripture from the necessity of

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