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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



These Babylonian and Assyrian re- 

 searches have had important bearings 

 upon the Old Testament. It was largely 

 the desire to secure inscriptions, by the 

 help of which the historical value of the 

 Hebrew Scriptures could be tested, that 

 inspired many in the early years of these 

 researches to support excavations. 



EXPLORATION AND THE SCRIPTURES 



Imagine the interest that was aroused 

 when the first Assyrian inscription was 

 deciphered, referring to events recorded 

 in the Old Testament, or when George 

 Smith announced that he had discovered 

 among the tablets of the library of 

 Ashurbanipal a portion of the deluge 

 story which closely resembles the Biblical 

 account. 



Several creation stories have been 

 handed down by the Sumerians and 

 Babylonians. The one showing the great- 

 est resemblance to the Biblical references 

 to the creation in Genesis and in the po- 

 etical books was found in the library of 

 Ashurbanipal. After depicting the con- 

 flict between Marduk, the god of light, 

 and Tiamat, the primeval goddess of 

 chaos, it says the heavens and the earth 

 were created. 



The Sumerian cosmology, found at 

 Sippar, symbolizes the establishment of 

 order out of chaos. Still another frag- 

 ment of a creation story, written in Su- 

 merian and found at Nippur, makes 

 another goddess, Nintu by name, the 

 creator. 



ACCOUNTS OE THE FLOOD 



Besides the eleventh tablet of the Gil- 

 gamesh epic found by George Smith, of 

 the British Musuem, which contains the 

 deluge story so closely resembling the 

 Biblical account, several others have since 

 been discovered. There is a Ninevite 

 recension also in the British Museum and 

 a fragment of an earlier copy. 



Another, the oldest dated story of the 

 flood, is in the library of the late J. Pier- 

 pont Morgan. It was written in the 

 reign of Ammizaduga, a little later than 

 2000 B. C. This represents a god calling 

 upon Adad, the weather god, to cause a 

 destructive rainstorm, and Ea interpos- 

 ing in order to save the diluvian hero. 



Several years ago a little fragment of 



another Semitic story was found in the 

 University of Pennsylvania Collection, 

 but more recently a Sumerian version, 

 which makes Ziugidda of Shuruppak 

 the hero of the flood. 



It has been suggested that the Ziugidda 

 tablet belongs to a series, fragments of 

 which have been found, and that this se- 

 ries contained lists of kings who ruled 

 before and after the deluge to the time 

 that the tablet was written, indicating that 

 perhaps it is a Babylonian history of the 

 world. 



Should this fragment prove to belong 

 to such a series, it would be a striking 

 parallel to the brief history of the world 

 as found preserved in the Old Testament. 

 An interesting feature of the tablet con- 

 taining the reigns of kings is that a period 

 of 32,234 years is claimed between the 

 deluge and the last king of Isin, who 

 lived a little before 2000 B. C. Just how 

 many kings ruled in this period is not 

 known. In the previous period, how- 

 ever — that is, between the creation and 

 the deluge — Berosus (who lived about 

 300 B. C.) informs us ten primeval kings 

 ruled for 432,000 years. 



BIBLE STORY CORROBORATED 



The Babylonian inscriptions have 

 thrown a flood of light upon the patri- 

 archal period. Although many modern 

 critics have until recently declared the 

 entire historical situation different from 

 that found in the Old Testament, they 

 are now forced to acknowledge it to be in 

 strict accord with the many details gath- 

 ered from the monuments. The actual 

 personal existence of the patriarchs, how- 

 ever, is still held by these scholars to be 

 completely disproved. 



Other scholars, however, hold that, 

 notwithstanding the fact that we have 

 peered in vain for reference on the monu- 

 ments to the patriarchs, inasmuch as all 

 such details that we could expect to see 

 corroborated have been in an almost re- 

 markable manner, that there is every rea- 

 son to believe that the patriarchs them- 

 selves were historical. 



But not alone the patriarchal period 

 thus receives new light, but so many 

 archaeological sidelights have been thrown 

 upon the Old Testament that there is 

 scarcely a page that has not been illumi- 



