THE BABYLONIAN STORY OF THE CREATION. 



55 



those days are said to ])e unsuitable for the king and other persons 

 mentioned to do the things referred to. This is not quite what one 

 would expect for the sabbath. The lud-gnl and the sabbath are 

 apparently two different institutions. 



As to whether the Assyrian word sahattu is connected with the 

 Hebrew sabbath or not I leave to your individual opinions, but it 

 seems to me very probable that it is. The days with the Babylonians 

 were not numbered from one to seven and then beginning again, but 

 they began with the first day and went straight on to the 29th 

 or 30th, as the case might be. In the lists there are certain 

 days that have special names. Amongst other names quoted are 

 hul gal and loho.t, which latter was the fifteenth day of the month. 

 So we have this little difficulty. Perhaps there is a confusion of the 

 two terms, and the Hebrews, borro\Wng the word sabliath, 

 may have applied it to their development of the term hul-gal which 

 was evil in the eyes of the Babylonians. 



Mr. BosCAWEX. — There is no trace of it in any ordinary 

 document. 



Dr. Pinches. — Xo, it only occurs in the list with the numbers of 

 the days. 



Concerning />/«/' being the same as Ece. I leave that also to 

 your indi^'idual opinions. 



I do not know whether there is really anything in the story of 

 the flood where Anu is spoken of in connection with the rainbow. I 

 should like to have more information from the Babylonian inscrip- 

 tions on that point before I pronounce an opinion. 



Mr. Martin Equse. — I have I'ead it from the translations several 

 times. 



Dr. Pinches. — Yes, I know it has been translated so. 



Then as to the question of Mcrodach and Ximrod, we must admit 

 that Xinmarad is very similar to Ximrod, but I think, as I stated in 

 my article in Hastings' Didionary of the Bible, that certain names 

 were manipulated by the Hebrew scribes simply because they were 

 the names of Hebrew deities and because they were polytheistic 

 they did not wish to commit them to paper. Of these Ximrod is one. 



I do not know that anything calls for an answer in the remarks 

 of Professor Orchard. I am much oliliged to him for his kind 

 expressions, and I will now pass to Dr. "Walker's question concerning 

 the lamentations for Tammuz. These go back certainly to 2,000 



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