NEWLY-DISCOVERED VERSION OF THE STORY OP THE FLOOD. 157 



notwithstanding that an Aramaic docket represents Istar by Is 

 simply. I admit that Professor Hilprecht regards the animals as 

 having been sent to the Babylonian Noah by twos, but that is his 

 own idea as to the completion of the fragment. I have already 

 suggested an alternative rendering. The reading of the group 

 formerly transcribed Bel as Enlil, Ellil, or Illil, is based upon 

 Aramaic dockets found on tablets from NifFer. Enlil was the 

 same as the older Bel, who, like other gods of the Babylonian 

 pantheon, gave his name to Merodach ; and Merodach could there- 

 fore be styled Bnlil or Bel, notwithstanding that he was an entirely 

 distinct divinity. 



Turning to the identification of £a or Ae with Jah, I cannot help 

 iidmitting that this is not satisfactory. The first syllable of his 

 name, e, is the same as is found in the word ekal, "palace," a word 

 which has gone into the other Semitic languages in the form of 

 hekal, with the meaning of "temple." It is therefore improbable 

 that the sound of y was ever heard at the beginning of the name, 

 and the old transcription as Hea instead of Ea may therefore turn 

 out to be more correct, and this would carry it a step farther away 

 from Jah. 



I have often wondered whether the legends of floods among 

 uncivilized nations were really of any great value. When I was 

 quite young I remember reading somewhere about a story of the 

 Flood among a North American tribe, which, as it afterwards turned 

 out, they had simply obtained from the missionaries.* Such legends 

 ought, therefore, to be accepted with a certain amount of caution. 



T quite agree that the new version contains many parallels with 

 the account in Genesis. If all the words on the fragment are 



* See the Races of Mankind, by Eobert Brown, M.A., vol, i, p. 143 : 

 An eminent ethnologist once told me that, after great trouble, he had, 

 at least as he thought, got hold of a tradition of the flood among the 

 north-west American Indians, but he could only get it bit by bit out of 

 the old man who was the repository of this and other such-like lore. It 

 cost my friend many blankets and other presents, and the labour of hours 

 to write it down from the aboriginal language. At last he came to the 

 finale. ' Now what was the man's name who got away with his wife in 

 the big canoe ? ' The old Indian could not recollect, and went in search 

 of another who knew the name. The two came back in pride, and 

 related to my breathlessly eager friend, ' His name was Noah ? ' " (Cassell, 

 Better, and Galpin. No date.) 



