ANCIENT BABYLONIAN ASTROGONY. 397 



is the reference to " wandering stars." Mr. Smith remarks 

 that the word nibir, thus translated, " is not the usual word 

 for planet, and there is a star called Nibir near the place 

 where the sun crossed the boundary between the old and 

 new years, and this star was one of twelve supposed to 

 be favourable to Babylonia." " It is evident," he proceeds, 

 " from the opening of the inscription on the first tablet of 

 the Chaldaean astrology and astronomy, that the functions 

 of the stars were, according to the Babylonians, to act not 

 only as regulators of the seasons and the year, but also to 

 be used as signs, as in Genesis i. 14 ; for in those ages it 

 was generally believed that the heavenly bodies gave, by 

 their appearance and positions, signs of events which were 

 coming on the earth." The two verses relating to Nibir 

 seem to correspond to no other celestial bodies but planets 

 (unless, perhaps, to comets). If we regard Nibir as signify- 

 ing any fixed star, we can find no significance in the marking 

 of the course of the star Nibir, that it may do no injury 

 and may not trouble any one. Moreover, as the fixed stars, 

 the sun, and the moon, are separately described, it seems 

 unlikely that the planets would be left unnoticed. In the 

 biblical narrative the reference to the celestial bodies is so 

 short that we can understand the planets being included in 

 the words, " He made the stars also." But in an account 

 so full of detail as that presented in the Babylonian tablet, 

 the omission of the planets would be very remarkable. It 

 is also worthy of notice that in Polyhistor's Babylonian 

 traditions, recorded by Berosus, we read that " Belus formed 

 the stars, the sun, the moon, and the five planets." 



In the tablet narrative the creator of the heavenly bodies 

 is supposed to be Ami, god of the heavens. This is inferred 

 by Mr. Smith from the fact " that the God who created the 

 stars, fixed places or habitations for Bel and Hea with him- 

 self in the heavens." For according to the Babylonian 

 theogony, the three gods Anu, Bel, and Hea share between 

 them the divisions of the face of the sky. 



The account of the creation of the moon is perhaps the 



