1883. 109 Tratis. N. V. Ac. Sci. 



The tablet of Cutha is so grotesquely absurd, that no one claims 

 that it, or any part of it, is embodied in the Hebrew account. The 

 same is true even in a stronger degree of the story related by Berosus. 



The myths have no division into creative days. They have no fiats. 

 The gods do not pronounce their work good. The Hebrew account 

 is divided by the creative day verses into six periods. Every creative 

 act is preceded by a fiat, and six times God pronounces His work 

 good, and then He sees all that He has made and pronounces it very 

 good. 



There is nothing like this in the myths. It is therefore absurd to 

 say that these were the sources from which was taken the account in 

 our Bibles. In conclusion, it was stated that these myths are not a 

 cosmogony at all, or, at least, this is not their primary purpose. They 

 form a theogony. They set forth the origin and descent of the gods, 

 and join to each his supposed share in arranging the world and the 

 heavens. As such they are intelligible and duly proportioned. 



DISCUSSION. 



Dr. B. N. Martin remarked on the interest of the comparisons 

 which had been made, and assented to the conclusion, in regard to 

 the scanty similarity of the two accounts. In the many gods wor- 

 shipped by the Greeks, Egyptians, and Chaldeans, there was noth- 

 ing ultimate, and the question always presented itself — whence 

 these gods came. In the Hebrew account, however, the Supreme 

 Agent was self-existent and self-dependent. Also, in modern phil- 

 osophy, there is a continual tendency to the resolution of all the 

 varied physical forces into a single, infinite, always existing Force — 

 the " Force of the Infinite" of Herbert Spencer. It was an im- 

 portant distinction, made by the author of the paper, that all the 

 other ancient philosophies were theogonies, while that of the He- 

 brews was a cosmogony, one produced by a personal Infinite Force. 



Rev. H. C. HovEY observed that from a purely historical and 

 rational point of view, although, on the one hand, the Hebrews 

 had been closely associated with the Chaldeans, through their Chal- 

 dean progenitor Abraham, and in the early intercourse of his sons 

 and grand-sons with that people — on the other hand, a long break 

 of four centuries took place in that intercourse, while the Israelites 

 were in Egypt ; so that Moses was far more likely to have been 

 influenced from Egypt than from Chaldea, in writing his cosmogony. 



