THE CONTROVERSIALIST 189 



Professor Sayce, " is the Babylonian Eden or Chal- 

 dean c plain ' ; its garden with the Tree of Knowledge 

 is celebrated in an old Babylonian poem (and depicted 

 on Assyrian monuments), and two of the rivers that 

 water it are the Tigris and Euphrates." ! The 

 cherubim are " clearly no native Hebrew conception,'' 

 and are probably derived either from the Hittite griffin 

 or the Babylonian divine winged bulls. 2 



In the story of the Flood, " we have a direct and 

 interesting parallel from Babylonia," the original of 

 which was discovered in 1872. Canon Driver sup- 

 plies an admirable resume of the epic, whose subject is 

 the exploits of the hero Gilgamesh, told in twelve 

 cantos. The Deluge-story forms the eleventh of 

 these cantos. 



There are of course differences; the Biblical ac- 

 count of the Deluge was not, any more than the 

 Biblical account of Creation, transcribed directly from 

 a Babylonian source ; but by some channel or other — 

 we can but speculate by what — the Babylonian story 

 found its way into Israel ; details were forgotten or 

 modified : it assumed, of course, a Hebrew complex- 

 ion, being adapted to the spirit of Hebrew monothe- 

 ism, and made a vehicle for the higher teaching of the 

 Hebrew religion ; but the main outline remained the 

 same, and the substantial identity of the two narra- 

 tives is unquestionable. 3 



1 The Temple Bible, Introd. p. xiv. 



2 Encyclopaedia Biblica, Art. " Cherubim." 



3 Authority and Archceology, p. 27 ; and see Coll. Essays, iv. pp. 

 239-286. 



