THE BABYLONIAN STORY OF THE CREATION. 



53 



valuable paper. We may congratulate ourselves that a very close 

 investigation is being made at the present time of these Creation 

 stories both in the Ba])ylonian series of tablets and in Genesis ; the 

 more closely they are investigated the more we may be sure the 

 truth concerning both will come out. 



I think we may come to the conclusion, already, that the 

 Babylonian story is very largely legendary. But whenever we 

 find a legend it is natural to inquire whether there may not have 

 been some basis for the legend. Now if we look into the 

 Babylonian legend, we shall find some prominent points of it that 

 we must admit to be matters of fact. First of all there is a chaos 

 of the primeval elements of creation, with no distinct discrimination 

 between land, sea and clouds. Then you have an extraordinary 

 intervention of the power of Merodach — a fight with the dragon 

 of chaos and a description of the separation between land and sea, 

 and clouds and water, and then there follows something of an 

 astronomical nature, and you have the constellations referred to. 

 Subsequently to that you have the creation of different animals, 

 plants and man. 



Now both the story in Genesis and the story as described by 

 modern science have arranged these facts in exactly the same 

 order. You will remember that the geologist tells us about an 

 universal ocean, and you have these words occurring in the 

 Babylonian story, " The waters of the sea were one." Then in the 

 first chapter of Genesis you have the account of the appointment 

 of the sun and moon to regulate the day and night, and the 

 appearance of the stars followed by the creation of plants, animals, 

 and man. 



Now I beg to submit that we have a most important question 

 before us — How did the Babylonian legend become framed if there 

 were not some knowledge of the facts before the legend came into 

 existence 1 And if the facts were known before the legend came 

 into existence (and I take it there is no possibility of denying that 

 they must have been), there is then this very pertinent and difficult 

 question. How came those facts to be known? If you compare 

 the first chapter of Genesis with the Babylonian story, you have a 

 simple unvarnished account of facts as they were. I challenge 

 any charge against that chapter of any single incorrect word in 

 the light of the most modern science from beginning to end. 



