226 EEV. JOHN TUCKWELL, M.R.A.S... ON ARCHEOLOGY AND 



the Signs of the Zodiac, causing the moon to shine by 

 night and establishing a lunar year of twelve months. It is 

 this tablet, with its allusion to the Zodiac, which suggests to 

 Mr. Maunder the date of 700 B.C. Of the sixth tablet we have 

 only about a dozen complete lines, which appear to refer to the 

 ■creation of man by Marduk out of his own blood, and perhaps 

 to the creation of woman also. The number, variety, and 

 importance of the works recorded upon the tablets represented 

 by these two fragments were out of all proportion to the single 

 creative task described on the other four. It would not be at 

 ;all surprising, therefore, were we to find that their contents were 

 an adaptation of some older version tacked on to the other four 

 to complete the story. 



In contrast with all this, the Hebrew story is so pure, so 

 lofty, so impressive, and thrown into such language, as to teach 

 the unity, sovereignty, goodness and omnipotence of God to 

 every age and in every tongue, and to minds of every degree 

 of culture and knowledge. It seems an outrage upon our 

 reason and our moral sensibilities to ask us to regard it as 

 derived from a composition so impossible, so grotesque, and 

 so degrading to the Deity as the Babylonian legend. " Who 

 can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? Not one." We 

 are driven to the conclusion, therefore, that the Genesis account 

 cannot be of such recent date as modern Biblical scholarship 

 has supposed. It may be but a fragment (if you will), but it 

 is literature of great antiquity, conveying to man, from some 

 superhuman source, a knowledge of events which transpired 

 before his own existence, intended to win his obedience, worship, 

 and love, to the One Author of his being, the Creator of the 

 Universe. 



(ii) Let us pass now to the second and more detailed version 

 of man's creation, and the account of the creation of woman, 

 and the institution of marriage, in Genesis ii. It is very 

 sio-nificant that there should be these two versions, and that 

 there should have been two or more versions of the creation 

 legend among the Babylonians. But if the Biblical record be 

 true, it may suffice to say that this ampler version, like the more 

 general, must have got there by some means other than deriva- 

 tion from the Babylonian legends or than mere happy guess- 

 work. Men and women of past ages were as little likely to 

 have been able to give an account of their own creation as an 

 adult person to-day to give an account of his own birth. 



Let us add to this the story of "The Fall"; whether we 

 regard it as symbolical or literal, or partly both, is immaterial to 



