MODERN BIBLICAL SCHOLAESHIP. 



225 



to his contemporaries that the English derived the story 

 from their very intellectual German neighbours. Or again, it 

 is even said that the Genesis record is sifted out of the Baby- 

 lonian legend. 



But if we are right, as seems almost certain, in identifying- 

 Marduk with Mmrod, then that legend must be later than the 

 fact recorded of him in Gen, x, that "the beginning of his 

 kingdom was Babel, Erech, Akkad and Calneh." Further, the 

 deified Nimrod, Marduk, only takes the supreme place in the 

 Babylonian pantheon in succession to Enlil of Nippur (Calneh) 

 as the natural corollary to the rise of Babylon to the 

 imperial sovereignty over the other cities of Babylonia under 

 " The First Dynasty of Babylon." The legend, therefore, 

 cannot be earlier than about 1900 B.C. Yet, further, Mr. 

 Maunder, in his Astronomy of the Bible, tells us that the 

 astronomical allusions in it to the Signs of the Zodiac forbid 

 that it should have appeared in its latest form earlier than about 

 700 B.C. This does not mean that the legend was first con- 

 structed then, for there is a part of what may be a version of an 

 earlier date contained in a bi-lingual tablet, and which appears 

 to have been used as an incantation formula. But it is 

 anachronistic, unmethodical, and incoherent. One of these 

 languages is Sunierian, and contains the words " Adam " and 

 Eden " ; the other is a Semitic translation. But the priority of 

 the Hebrew story to these and all other versions is plainly im- 

 plied by a comparison of their contents. It would be super- 

 fluous to recapitulate the well-known version of the seven, or 

 more correctly six, tablets. But it is necessary to notice that 

 the four first are occupied with the account of the destruction 

 by Marduk of the old goddess Tiamat, the goddess of the stormy 

 deep, whose body he splits into two parts, " like a fiat-fish," one 

 part being used to support the upper waters, while watchmen 

 are placed to see that they do not break forth again. 



Now when a legend is formed on the basis of a fact or truth, 

 it is manifest that the fact or truth nmst be known before the 

 legend can be compiled. The fact underlying the contents 

 of these four tablets is the creation of the " firmament " to 

 " divide the waters from the waters," which is related with such 

 beautiful simplicity, dignity, and brevity in the Hebrew story. 

 The conclusion, therefore, is irresistible that the Hebrew story, 

 whoever wrote it and wherever it came from, must have been 

 known to the old Babylonian poets, who elaborated it into their 

 grotesque legend. Of the fifth tablet we have only some twenty 

 or thirty complete lines assigning to Marduk the work of fixing 



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