NEWLY-DISCOVERED VERSION OP THE STORY OF THE FLOOD. 153 



Rev. John Tuckwell, M.RA.S., said : I should like to give 

 expression to what I am sure will be the feeling of all present of 

 deep indebtedness to Dr. Pinches for his very valuable paper. He 

 has grouped together the various records of the Flood, discovered in 

 Babylonia, in a most concise, luminous and interesting way. It may 

 have seemed surprising that so much could be got out of so small a 

 fragment. Its similarity to the Genesis account is certainly in- 

 structive. It indicates the great antiquity of the Genesis story 

 wherever it came from. Professor Hilprecht's opinion that the 

 story upon this fragment goes back, at least, as far as 2000 B.C., 

 appears to be well-founded. But the story was apparently a very 

 old one then. Hence it must go back far beyond the time of Moses, 

 and gives the quietus to the attacks of those critics who endeavoui* 

 to make the Hebrew account a matter of comparatively modern 

 times. 



Another point indicated by the two records is that the Hebrew 

 account was not derived from the Babylonian. The Hebrew 

 account has no local colouring. It gives no indication of the part 

 of the world where the ark was built. Possibly in some inland 

 region now submerged. Who knows whether it may not have been 

 in what is now the bed of the Mediterranean sea ? The breaking 

 up of the fountains of the great deep might certainly refer to the 

 ocean overflowing the land. But in the Babylonian accounts there 

 are many indications of Babylonian thought and custom. The part 

 the gods play ; the structure being a ship, not an ark ; the pilot being 

 put on board natural enough for a people accustomed to the use of 

 ships. A pilot is of service because he has been there before, but a 

 pilot in a Deluge ! 



It is interesting to observe that in both cases we have what pur- 

 ports to be a personal narrative. The writer speaks of what he 

 saw and experienced. As Dr. Pinches has pointed out, there are no 

 " high places " in Babylonia, so that even the Babylonian account 

 could not have originated there. The mountains or high places 

 must in both cases have been those which the writer observed, not 

 all the high mountains everywhere all over the world. Hence it 

 leaves the question of the extent of the Flood to be settled by the 

 geologist. 



Professor Prestwich, many years ago, in a paper read before this 

 Institute, pointed out that there were indications along the northern 



