ON ACCOUNTS OF THE CEEATION. 247 



Jewi.-,]! people, nor that the Chaldeans are inhabitants of the same part of 

 the globe. I differ very ninch from the author of the paper, for I think 

 there was a great deal more in common between these peoples than he has 

 been able to see, partly, I suppose, because he has been dealing with M. 

 Lenormant's translations, which do not bring the fullest light of history to 

 bear upon the subject, while there are a few works that have been written 

 since that of M. Lenormant which would have thrown more light on the 

 question. There is one, indeed, which I think every clergyman who wishes to 

 understand the first chapter of Genesis would do well to consult ; I refer 

 to Professor Schrader's Commentary on the " Cuneiform Inscriptions and the 

 Old Testament," in which the points of contact between the Hebrew and the 

 Chaldean traditions are brought out very clearly, without any attempt at 

 enforced agreement ; indeed, if anything, I think there is too conservative 

 a spirit exercised, although that, in my opinion, is much better than rushing 

 into hasty conclusions ; and here I should like, for a moment, to allude to 

 these points of contact, as they may be put forward. I should say that T have 

 treated this subject very fully in one of my Museum lectures on the Creation, 

 delivered some time since, but subsequently published in a work which 

 was issued last year, and most of the arguments on the matter may 

 there be found ; there are also one or two points upon which I should 

 like to add a few words. The revised translation of the first chapter of 

 Genesis brings out these points a little more clearly than before. The first 

 point is this — that both the Hebrew and Chaldean accounts start with the 

 idea of a pre-existent earth ; both presenting the same conception, that the 

 earth was unnamed — that is, without order or arrangement, without form, 

 and void — and that the whole was shrouded in darkness. Here I can hardly 

 conceive on what ground the author of the paper has proceeded. He says, 

 on page 240 : " To identify Lakhmu and Lakhamu with the Ruach, or Spirit 

 of Genesis, seems precarious." I do not know whether he refers to an 

 identification by M. Lenormant ; but, if so, I agree with him that that 

 is very hazardous. There is, however, a reasonable identification to be 

 made ; for in the third line of the first of the Chaldean Tablets we have 

 the limitless abyss as the mother, or rather, not exactly the mother, but the 

 source of the off'spring, of Lakhma ; and the word absu, " the abyss," is ex- 

 plained in bi-lingual Tablets as " house of wisdom," abs^i itself having the 

 abstract idea of wisdom. Thus we have the same idea as that which we get 

 in the eighth chapter of Proverbs, as to wisdom being the beginning of all 

 things — " I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth 

 was." We have also another point of contact, even more striking, in 

 that, both in the Hebrew and Chaldean accounts, the greatest prominence is 

 given to light as the first product of Creation. There is one line on this 

 Tablet which was a puzzle to Assyriologists for many years. The first word 

 on that line was never found in any other inscription, so that it was isolated, 

 and difficult of explanation ; but Dr. Haupt and Dr. Schriider have at last 

 succeeded in getting at the full translation, M. Lenormant had guessed at 



