252 W. p. JAMES, ESQ. 



said at the time I first examined tliat Tablet, wlien Mr. Budge, who dis- 

 covered it, allowed me to look at his copy, it is simply a myth founded on 

 the first fight between light and darkness. It is, in reality, a most poetic 

 elaboration of the phrase " Let there be light." The first work of Creation 

 is the destruction of darkness, which brooded and coiled round the' earth, 

 as the serpent is said to have coiled round the cosmic egg, so that the dark- 

 ness which for centuries had shrouded the earth was destroyed by the first 

 bright ray of light. This idea had grown up and expanded so poetically in 

 the minds of the Babylonian priests, that it resulted in the very 

 beautiful legend of the destruction of the Demon of Darkness, or of 

 P>il, by the powers of light. This, as I have said, was nothing 

 but an elaboration or expansion of the simple idea we have in the words of 

 Genesis, — " Let there be light," The conception of the destruction of dark- 

 ness had grown out of that beautiiul poetic statement, and it is this that has 

 come down to us as one of the Creation fragments. There are many other 

 questions which might be gone into in discussing these points ; but I should 

 occupy too much time were I to go into them now. The paper read this 

 evening is one which opens up another very important question. I have been 

 rather astounded at finding such a paper here, because about ten years ago 

 I read a paper of my own, at a meeting of this Society, dealing with these 

 Creation legends. On that occasion I put forward many of the theories that 

 appear in the production before us, and I remember that they were not so 

 well received as they appear to be at the present time. I am glad to find 

 that ten years of study on the subject of Assyriology, and matters apper- 

 taining to Babylonian research, have enabled the ideas, of which I am 

 speaking so freely this evening, to be accepted as well as they have been. 

 You may depend upon it that there is nothing to fear from these Assyrian 

 inscriptions, and that so long as you study them carefully, and are content 

 to say " I do not know," instead of jumping to conclusions, as I con- 

 sider M. Lenormant has, putting forward hasty deductions which have 

 done harm, — so long, I say, as you are able to examine these things 

 honestly and fairly, placing them side by side with the Biblical narra- 

 tive, you will find there is very little contradiction ; and that often 

 where you think contradiction exists, in a few years, by means of other 

 inscriptions, the apparent contradiction is gradually smoothed away. There 

 is one point which I think ought to be remembered. We must try and get 

 over an idea that is prevalent in many minds. I allude to the idea that 

 the first chapter of Genesis, and the traditions attaching to that account, 

 were written only at the time, some say of Moses, and others that of David. 

 They have been preserved for centuries, and handed down from one genera- 

 tion to another. The traditions which I believe Abraham brought out of 

 Chaldea, and which were then handed down from father to son, have, pro- 

 bably owing to the peculiar life the Hebrew peojale led, at one time in the 

 desert, and at others in places where they were least subject to Egyptian 

 influence, been preserved in a condition of purity far exceeding that of the 



