Babylonian Origins: Lecture by Kittel

8/10/2019 Babylonian Origins: Lecture by Kittel

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TRANSLATED FROII

THE

GBRIIAN

BY

DM D

CL E A.

EDITED

WITH

PREFACE BY

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A

D.

hird

Edition, Enlarged.

LONDON:

soc Y F PR OTr CH TI KNO ED

THU RLA AVE W. 43. EN ORI

BRIGHTON: 129. NORfH

STREET.

NE ORK S. G H

19

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PUBLISRED t IMI nIRECTIO OJ T1IE

TR CT

r . o K I I I ~ ' T E

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AUTHOR S PREFATORY NOTE T

THE

FIRST EDITION.

TH

following discourse consists of an

Address delivered before a Conference and

now published at the special request of many.

I have availed myself of the opportunity of

seeing the work through the press to add

in the way

of

notes some confirmatory

illustl ations.

PREFACE T THE

THmD

EDITION.

A

N W

edition of this discourse, which was

delivered a few years ago, having been called

for, I have introduced into the text, in order

to avoid dislocating it too much, only a few

corrections and additions here and there, t

the end, however, will be found some new

matter referring to several more recent dis-

coveries,

THE AUTHOR.

LElrzIG,

ay

8, 19o5.

A 2

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ENGLISH EDITOR S PREFACE.

THE

Lecture

by

Professor Kittel of Leipzig

. of which a translation is, with the author s

consent, published in the following pages, will

be found, it is believed, of peculiar interest

and value t the present moment. Great

attention has of late been directed to the

bearing of recent discoveries in ancient

Babylonia upon the sacred records in the

Book of Genesis. Under the title of abel

nd

ible Professor Friedrich Delitzsch has

endeavoured t persuade the public th t the

early narratives in th t Book, and the whole

conception of the world and of man s place in

it

which Jews and Christians have learned

from them, are rea.lly derived from the Baby-

lonian legends on the same subjects; and he

has pressed home the inevitable conclusion

from such a view th t they cannot be regarded

as due t any Divine revelation. The Gel IDan

Emperor, though he repudiates the Professor s

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6

PREFACE

. conclusions, has given cun ency

to

his specu-

lations

by

the special attention he has paid to

them,

and there are eager endeavours in some

quarters to

tre t

the main contentions of

Professor Delitzsch as established results of

scientific inquiry. n such circumstances

it

ecomes

of great importance to learn

whether the conclusions of which Professor

Delitzsch has made himself the spokesman

are really accepted by the best authorities in

critical circles. He is a considerable authority

in Aflsyriology; but his name may carry

undue weight in the popular mind by recalling

the venerable authority of his father, the

eminent Professor Franz Delitzsch. The fact

is

th t

his allegations have provoked a lively

controversy among German scholars; and the

lecture which

is

here translated

will

give the

English reader,

in

brief compass, a clear and

authoritative view of the opposition which,

on

purely scientific grounds, is being offered

in

Germany itself

to

the revolutionary views

in question.

Professor Kittel s name is well known and

honoured among all students of the higher

criticism of the Old Testament. He belongs

to the critical and historical school of which

the late Professor Dillmann of Berlin was the

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PREFACE

7

most eminent representative. He accepts the

current critical theories respecting the

com-

position of the Pentateuch,

but

rejects, like

Dillmann, the radical transformation of

ancient Jewish history which is adopted by

the popular school of Wellhausen. He is

recognized, however, as in the first r nk of

living critics, and his

istory o the

Hebr6 l.L B,

in which his critical and historical views are

embodied, was introduced to the English

pu hlic a few years ago in n English trans-

la.tion with a kindly Preface by Professor

Cheyne. Certainly, said Professor Cheyne,

the author's treatment of the traditions

respecting Moses and the Mosaic religion,

however much we may differ from his con-

clusions, is worthy of the most respectful

consideration, The English reader therefore

may he confident that,

in

listening to Professor

Kittel, he is in the hands of a critic whose

voice has a claim to

be

heard, in Germany as

well as in England, on this great controversy.

Now it will

be

found th t this Leipzig Pro-

fessor traverses in the most direct manner the

conclusions

so

loudly asserted by his brother

Profe or

in Berlin. Commencing with

n

interesting comparison between the recent

excavations in Crete and those in Babylonia

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8

PREFACE

and Assyria, he shows

that

in both cases the

result is to establish the existence of a solid

historic background for the traditions which

have come down to us from a period which,

alike in Ol eek and in Hebrew history, it has

been the custom t treat as prehistoric. The

l esult has been

at

least to remove any pre-

sumption based on archaeological grounds

against the historic b uth of the narratives of

the Patriarchs, But Professor Kittel proceeds

to expose the unreasonableness of the sup-

position,

that

the existence of a resemblance

between the Hebrew and Babylonian nan a-

tives of the Creation and the Flood is a proof

that

the former were derived from the latter.

He forcibly points out

that

the most remark-

able fact which results from the comparison is

not the resemblance but the difference between

the two, and he expresses his own conviction

that they represent entirely distinct traditions.

Considering that

Abraham is represented as

coming into Canaan from

Ur

and Harran, it

seems gratuitous

t

suppose that the Hebrew

traditions were only acquired at a later date

from such sources as the Canaanite population,

and much more natural to think

that

they were

brought by Abraham himself. In short, as he

says

p.

50), the Biblical conception of the

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PREFACE

9

universe, which constitutes a

p rt

of our faith,

and,

in

BO far as it does BO

is

for us not a

Baby Ionian conception,

but

extremely ancient

knowledge, the result of experience, and by

this way revealed by God to man and pre-

served among His people.

The Tract Committee thought that it would

reassure the minds of thoughtful Churchmen

and students of Scripture to have these ober

conclusions, which are substantially

in

har-

mony with the faith of the Church, submitted

to them

on

the authority of n eminent

German critic and historian of the time.

Such evidence will, in the present state of the

public mind, probably

be

thought of more

value than any controversial reply

to

Professor

Delitzsch

by

an English scholar or Churchman.

For this reason the Tract Committee have

thought

it

right to

prmt

a careful and complete

translation

of

Professor Kittel's pamphlet, al-

though there are passages in

it

from which they

are obliged to dissent. They cannot follow Pro-

fessor Kittel, for instance,

in

all the concessions

he

makes

to

current criticism, or

in his

view

of 'the bearing of such a question as the

historic reality of Abraham, and the sacred

records about him, on the Christian faith. n

publishing such a pamphlet, they are perhaps

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PREFACE

departing

in

some measure from their

usua l

practice. But English readers are

at

the

present time being somewhat browbeaten by

allegations of the practica.l unanimity of

GeI:lDan critics on these subjects; and there is

some danger lest preachers and people alike

should assume, from recent discussions n the

newspapers,

that

in scientific circles there is

only one' view

of

these questions. Professor

Kittel's statements, published 88 they are

here in their entirety, will prove

that

this is a

complete mistake. His Lecture will show

to

the English reader

that

in the highest circles

of criticism,even in Germany, there are scholars

who ma i ntain

that

nothing has yet been

established inconsistent with the

truth

of the

Patri.a.rchal narratives, or with the independent

and Divine origin of the sacred records of the

Creation and the

flood;

or, in the modest

but

weighty phrase of Bishop Butler, thatwith

respect to the ancient belief of the Church on

these subjects,

it

is not, however, so clear

a case

that

there is nothing n it.

ST

MICILUL'S,

CoURILL,

Febncary 1903.

HENRY WACE.

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THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS

AND EARLY BIBLE HISTORY.

IT

is a little over a hundred years since

it

was the good fortune of a German scholar

to

decipher

1

for the fit st time a few of the cunei-

form characters. No additional important

discoveries were made for another fifty years,

and a further period elapsed before any results

of scientific value could

be

reported.

The more

it

became evident

that

the dis-

coveries in the distant East had a bearing on

the subjects and incidents n the Bible, the

greater grew the enthusiasm, especially in

England and

America-the

land of Bible

knowledge

p r etCellence

and also,

if

we

may

say so of Christian sensationalism. When,

therefore, George Smith was fortunate enough

to diseover,

in

the year

1 8 7 ~

cuneiform frag-

ments containing

an

account of the Flood, the

expressions of delight beyond the

Channel and

the Atlantic knew no bounds. Sermons from

the pulpit, and whole columns of the daily

press, were filled with accounts of the discovery,

and some began

to

look forward

to

the day

when not only would the Union Jack float from

the taffrail of a newly discovered and authentic

1 t was in September, 1802 that Grotefend brought

before

the Gotlinger

Gesellschajt

der Wissenschtif m the

first

attempt at decipherment.

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12 1'UE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

Ark, but, what was of more importance, when

every doubt of the sceptical, and every sneer

of the mocker, in regard to the Bible, would

be utterly and inevitably confounded.

Seldom has the expression, if these shall

hold their peace, the stones will cry out, been

more frequently employed

and more grossly

misused than in the early days of the new learn

ing. Thoughtful Christians were unable to find

a hearing when they sought to point out to the

enthusiasts that it would hardly e in keeping

with the method of Divine government to set

entirely aside the old saying, They have

Moses

llnd the Prophets, let them hear them, and

to separate the recognition of the truth of His

word from individual moral effort and faith.

A very different picture presents itself be

fore our eyes to-day. A period of sobriety

and, in many cases, of depression has fol-

lowed

that

of jubilation and enthusiasm. n

the family of Oriental studies, Assyriology is

the latest born. It need not be a matter of

wonder, therefOl e,

if

in

individual instances

the repl'esentatives of the new knowledge

should not always have been able to shake off

the childlike love of sensation. Formerly,

men were attracted to the study of the Monu

ments in the hope of finding arguments on

behalf of the Bible. Now, the contemporaries

of Nietzsche and Haeckel find there is a much

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EARLY

BIBLE

HISTORY 13

greater prospeet of attention belng directed

to

the new leM'ning

if

it should succeed

in

adducing evidence against both the Bible and

Christianity. Indeed, of late years, especially

on occasions which would assign something

more than their ol'dinary meaning to expres-

sions of this kind, some scholars have ventured

on assertions which inevitably suggest that

the results of recent scientific

research-and

especially of recent

excavations-go to

prove

that

there can be

no

greater aberration of

the human intellect

than

belief

in

the Divine

Revelation

of

the Old Testament as mani-

fested either

in its

monotheism,

its

prophets,

or

in any

other respects I

Let us, therefore, bl'iefly

inquire-sine

ira

et 8tudio-how far we may expect to find help

from the Monuments, or how far we may have

to regal'd them as adverse to the Bible, One

result we may already regard as manifest.

As long as we do not expect too much from

external or

merely human sources, our hopes

will not be readily disappointed; and on the

other hand,

if

we fear no ea1'thly foe, Babylon

and all

its wOl ks

will not succeed

in

shaking

the rock on which

our

faith is based.

When I was a schoolboy, it was regarded

1 cr. Delitzscb, abel una Bibel Lecture

II,

ISt edit,

In

a later edition Delitz8ch partly toned down bis

statement.

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14

TH

BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

as the

final

verdict of scholarship that the

great Homeric Epic, in which the battles

of

the Greeks before Troy are depicted, was en

tirely the outcome of the phantasy of a poet,

or of a body of singers. Then Schliemann,

a layman among scholars, appeared on the

scene, who set to work with his spade on

the site of Tl OY, where no scholar of the

time would have dared to excavate without

imperilling his scientific reputation. I well

remember in my student-days how the scorn

of the whole body of the learned, and the

ridicule even of the comic papers, was

poured upon him when he came forward to

announce his discovery of Priam s- city, his

palace, and his treasures. For in those days

it was

an

article of belief with scholars that

our knowledge of the history of ancient

Greece practically began with Herodotus and

the time of the Persian wars.

To-day

it

is common ground in science

that the Greek expedition against Troy, not

of course in regard to particulars, but in

substance, was a fact, and that Tiryns,

My-

cenae, and Orchomenos were powerful states,

with a richly developed life and compara

tively high culture, of which, through the

channel of historical tradition alone, only

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

faint and mythical knowledge had

come

down

to us. Only last Whitsuntide, when I was

returning after the holidays to Leipzig, I met

in the railway carriage a learned friend who

was on his way back from Crete, and who

had seen there the excavations undertaken by

Evans, and was able to boast

that

he had sat

upon the throne and n the palace of King

Minos, a monarch well remembered by us all

at

school, and universally regarded by us as

the mere product of a myth

I ,

Why do I mention these things hm e 1 Do

not

be an-aid that I am going to

lose

myself

in the region of Greek antiquity, when our

concern is with Biblical and Babylonian,

I merely adduce these instances

n

order

to

show how in every domain of n c i e n ~ history,

even in the neutral region of classical anti

quity, a revision of our previous judgements

has been required as soon as the spade has

begun to ~ a k e the place of, or

at

least to

1

Minos

has

been

frequently

regarded as a Cretan

god, also as a personification

of

Zeus,

or

again

of the

Phoenician domination, and

of

Baal-Melkart

or of

Moon

worship, or even as a Sun-god, though Curtius, it is true,

already recognized him as a figure standing on the

threshold of history.

t

is readily seen how features of

the

(Cretan) Sun-god were associated with

the

historical

king, and how he thus came to be raised

to the

position

of a son of

the

gods.

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16 THE


prepare the way for, the pen.

Much that

we

previously held, and seemed justified in hold

ing as mythica.l, is now coming into the light

of history; and side by side with the already

mentioned Minos

we

have now, through the

latest discovered Assyrian inscriptions,

come

to accept the historical existence of King

Midas of Phrygia, of whom we previously

knew little more than the mythical story of his

asses' ears,

but

who is now recognized as an

actual and worthy ruler of the eighth century

before Christ 1 Many other things which are

still unknown, or only imperfectly known,

will doubtless emerge into light before

us,

and we may even now pronounce

in

regard

to this region the collective judgement, that

the

ea.1 ly

period of Greece, which previously,

and until quite lately as far as the time

before Herodotus and the Persian wars was

concerned, was involved in da.rkness, is coming

1 t

is

in

complete agreement with

what

is

to be ex

plained

further on

that

Midas continues

at the

present

time to be described briefly as an ancient divinity

of the

Northern

Greeks

and

Phrygians, more exactly (cf.

his

riches) as

a

blessing-scattering Nature-god

in

the

form of an animal, like SiIenus, and originally Dionysus,

a880Ciated with

whom

the ss

is

not

infrequently found.

To

this

ancient demon

of

vegetation,

clc. Thus

de

scribed in Roscher, Lexikon

er

gmch.-rilm.. Jlvthologie ii

col. 296 et seq.

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

11

more and more into the light of history; and

periods of development persons events and

circumstances which not long since were held

as absolutely prehistoric. are rising up unex

pectedly before us, so that we shall soon know

more of Greece and the Islands in the second

Millennium before our era than some twenty

or twenty-five

ye8J. s

ago we knew of the

former half of the first.

Now

it

is in the second Millennium before

Christ

that

the early history of the people

of

Israel falls.

As

we

soo,

from what has been

already said that in

regard to a region not far

distant from Palestine a process

is

going on

which we may briefly describe as a reaction

against earlier negative judgements: as we

see the boundaries of our knowledge ex

tending our reliance on certain traditions

becoming more assured while the foundations

themselves are unexpectedly demonstrated to

be capable of bearing more

than

had been

previously

assumed all

this cannot

but

be of

the greatest significance for Biblical criticism.

According to all analogy indeed we may

henceforward expect that in

the

case of

Biblical science also the stakes may be pushed

further forward

and the cords much further

lengthened than anxious minds were prep8J. ed

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18

TH BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

for

and that, too, without leaving the ground

of the historically possible and admissible.

f

in the case of Hellas and the Islands the

second Millennium before Christ is no longer

absolutely a terra incognita in all probability

the presumably older culture-field of Syria and

Palestine will be still less

so.

This expectation, already justified on in

trinsic grounds, has now been confirmed

in

a striking manner

by

actual discoveries on

Eastern soil.

Since the illustrious r i e n t a l i ~ t and theolo

gian of Gottingen, Heinrich Ewald, sug

gested

that

the names of the Patriarchs of

the Israelitish people

are to

be

explained, in

a measure, as names of tribes,

it

has come

more and more

to

be regarded as proved

that

the earliest traditions concerning the

Patriarchs and Tribes of Israel are merely

poetical presentations of myths-projections

of later history into the prehistoric past.

After

an

exhaustive literary criticism had

demonstrated

that

many portions of the

Hebrew legal and historical documents were

materially later than had previously been

supposed, the earlier and oldest tl adition

seemed to be altogether deprived of

an

au

thentic basis, and, consequently, of the right

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY I

to exist at all. How then are we to know

anything of ancient times, it may be asked, i f

we

have no documents 1

Who, indeed, would vouch for the fact that

writing was known at all in those ancient

days?

It

was doubted whether the

use of

writing was known

in

Israel even as late as

the time of the Judges. t was then, more

over, observed that exactly

at

the epoch

when men had thought themselves justified

in fixing the obscure dawning of histOlic

times, there was a period in Israel of relatively

rude mannel S and imperfect civilization-tbe

so-called time of the Judges. But supposing

, that the testimonies belong to a late date, and

that

we have no written evidence from an

earlier period, what was more natural than

to assume. in aecordaI ce with modern prin

ciples and the law of evolution, that we have

here

t do, in

fact, with the beginning of a

course of development, and that on the most

favourable supposition the times of the Judges

and of Saul coincided with the dawn of

Israelitish history, behind which stretched

the impenetrable and never-to-be-illumined

darkness of night 1

Everything thus seemed, and seems, t

contribute to establish the truth of the propo

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20

THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

s i t i o n ~ w h i h

is to-day indeed regarded as

almost the orthodox dogma ora truly scientific

theology that the history

of

Israel really

begins

in

the time of the Judges and the early

Kings behind which on the most favourable

hypothesis Moses still occupies a place though

merely

that

of a dim and vague figure

ha I dly

within the province

of

history.

Here too

it

has been given to

the

spade to

throw light upon the question and

if

to-day

it seems somewhat hazardous

to

discern a

similar result nevertheless

it

is my confident

conviction that it will more and more assert

itself and will be established more

and

more triumphantly as our knowledge of

the

ancient East advances. Already as

it

would

seem owing to the advance in our know

ledge the axe is laid

to

the real root of

the matter to the ultimate and most.deeply

seated base

of

this whole conception

that

is to the dogma

of

a continuous and

unbroken line of evolution. The latest ex

cavations

in

Crete

to

which allusion has

been already made have brought. home to

the astonished eyes of the few who have

seen the material for the most part still

undescribed the startling fact that there far

back in the second Millennium before Christ

a creative art was

in

full activity far excel-

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

2

ling in perfectioIl; tha.t which

wa s

known

in

the early Greek period. How are we to

interpret this phenomenon otherwise than on

the hypothesis that at an early period pre

viously regarded as pre-historic and outside

the domain of history altogether in a region

in the closest relations with Greece. intellectual

development had already reached so high a

degree. of matUlity that it was capa ble of

exhibiting

an

artistic activity of a distinct

c1a ssica l c h a r a . ~ t e r a n d that in the convul

sionsof what was previously called the Early

Greek Period this inheritance of an ancient

time was lost to the tribes of Greece and the

Islands and that Hellas had

to

sta.rt afresh in

the so-called archaic Greek art on its path of

evolution torea.ch a t length in Phidias and

Praxiteles its highest triumph of artistic skill 1

In

all probability the ancient East exhibited

the same degree of culture. The Berlin Museum

contains in this respect an extraordinarily

suggestive and splendidly sculptured head of

an ancient Sumerian priest-consequently a

representative of the most ancient period of

pre-Semitic Babylon. A similar impression is

produced by certain antiquities from Tello es-

pecially a series of magnificent examples in the

Louvre in Paris. But as a still more striking

example I may point to two bronze gazelle-

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THE B B Y L O N ~ N EXCAVATIONS AND

heads in the possession of my friend Hilprecht

the

scientific leader of the richly-rewarded

Amerie n exC vations

at

Nippurl

in

Babylonia

-who

himself discovered them. The surpris

ing deliC cy of execution, the noble beauty and

fidelity to nature by which these representa

tions are characterized, must excite the rapture

of every one who

sees

them:

they would, in my

judgement,

do

honour

to

the

telier

of a Begas

or a Donndorf. The life-size example, which

is of wondrous beauty, is especially character.;

istic. They come down

to

us from the time

of Sargon I, and therefore belong,

at

the latest,

to the Fourth, perhaps even to the Fifth

Millennium before Christ. The material of

theSe

figures,

8

determined by a thorough

chemie l

examination, consists of an alloy of

copper and antimony, without any admixture

of tin, and they consequently belong to the

period before the manufacture of genuine

bronze was known in Babylonia or elsewhere.

They excel, moreover, in considerable mea

sure, much

ifnot

all, that the later Babylonian

workshops have turned out

2.

1

Now called Ni1fer. t is probably

the

Calneh

of the

Bible which the list

of

Nations Gen. x) places among

the oldest cities

of

Babylon.

, For

further

information

on

the

matter, see

the

Transactions

of

the Berlin Anthropologische Gesellschaft,

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

3

And here also we can

see

in my opinion

no other explanation than

that

already given.

A degradation must have taken place a

species of intellectual impoverishment-a re

trograde movement and a falling off from a

previous higher stage of cplture but which was

again approached and that too gradually and

by slow degrees 1. What becomes then of the

dogma of continuous development

in

the case

of Israel? and what kind of right have we to

assume

that

the rude customs and conceptions

of the period

of

the Judges represent absolutely

the beginning of the national life of Israel 1

But when once the foundation becomes in

secure the structures erected upon

it

are not

likely to remain ul.lshaken. One

of

the chief

supports of the latter is as we have seen the

now frequently reiterated assertion that the

Israelites of the time of

Moses before the

entrance into Canaan were nothing more

19o1 Feb. 16 where the photographic reproduction of

the smaller example is given. .

1

H. Winckler also seems quite lately to .represent a

similar view. See Babyl. Kultt4r 19o2 p. 13. This work

however came only into my

hands

while these pages

were going through the

press;

while

the

view

put

forth

above had been expressed frequently by me both publicly

and privately as soon

a8

I became acquainted with

the

discovery in question; in

the

last instance at the Church

Conference at Meissen

in

the

Spring of 19o2.

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4 THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS AND

than a rude tribe of Nomads, destitute

of

all

higher culture, who had hitherto wandered

about

n

the Arabian wilderness, and whose

state of civilization and religious development

may be compared, in some respects, to the

present, 01 even the pre-Islamic, condition of

the Bedouin tribes of this region, and

n

others

to that

of even the wildest nature-races

of the present day.

About twenty years ago this error was

n

a

certain measure excusable. t had been known

for

along

time that Egypt and Babylon were

n

possession of a highly ancient civilization,

but of the early condition of Syria and Pales

tine, and of the desert regions on their borders,

extremely little was known. Our knowledge

was limited, for the most part,

to

what we

could infer from the Bible, namely, that the

pre-Israelite inhabitants of the Holy

Land-

the so-called Canaanites-excelled the in

vading Hebrews in the

art

of war and in

general culture, and that consequently they

became later on their instructors. e may

hence

in some

measure understand how the

conclusion was drawn, that Israel

was

then

still

n

the condition of an uncivilized

nomadic horde.

But, thanks to the Tel-el.Amarna

tablets

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

25

discovered in the beginning of I888-which

contaill a correspondence, condllcted

in

cunei

form writing, between the Pharaohs, Ame

no phis III and

IV

(circ. 1400 B.C. , with

contemporary Eabylonian, Canaanite, and

other rulers and chiefs-we now possess a

fairly exact knowledge of the material and

intellectual environment

in which the s ~

raelites found themselves

in

Canaan, and

out of which they came. We see from these

sources of information

that

the conception of

the

Canaanites with which the Eible furnishes

us is entirely corl ect,

but that it

must be

supplemented by this further fact, namely,

that

the land was subject politically to

Egyptian rule,

and

intellectually

t

Baby

lonian influences. We find, moreover, from

these tablets, and frem other sources of in

formation also, that there can e no ground

for the assumption

that

the Syro-Arabian, and

to some extent the Sinaitic-Arabian, desert

regions on the Palestine border were in the

same condition as they are to-day, or as they

were

in

the first centUlies of our era.

Arabia at that time was not simply a region

of Bedouins, a pasture land.

t

was too, the

home of comparatively settled peoples, with

strongholds and towns, and warlike chiefs.

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26


Their mode of living was by no means lacking

in advanced e6ucation and culture; but, on

the contrary, was thoroughly saturated with

the elements of Babylonian,. and no doubt

also of Egyptian, life and thought. Round

about them, in Syria and Palestine, a highly

developed civilization had been already n

active existence for

at

least a full thousand

years.

t

is impossible

that

the land adjoin

ing these countries should have been n the

condition

we

find it in to-day, after subjection

for

a thousand years to the rule of the

Turk;

or such as it was n the time of Mohammed 1

It is still more perverse, n the f ce of

such facts, to measure as

it

has become

quite lately the fashion

to

do in regard

to

the history and religious condition of early

Greece) the general and religious situation

of Israel at that time

by

the standard of

fetish-worshipping and totemistic

savages-

as

if

Israel or Greece were then

at

the same

stage of civilization as

that

of such barbaric

peoples and tlibes to-day, and their

mode

of

thought and morals were consequently to be

understood from those of the latter.

I

will, n

this connexion, adduce only one

consideration.

f it

is certain, as we learn

1

Compare Weber, Arabien vor d m Islam J90J.

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EARLY BIBLE IIISTORY

27

from the Tel-el-Ama.ma discovery, that an ex

tensive epistolary literature existed in Canaan

and its neighbourhood about

1400 B.

c., is

it

1I t

all likely that

oses

and his followers

living only a few days' journey away-should

remain perfectly uninfluenced by such know

ledge and skill, and should not be able to

write 1 Does not rather the tradition that

oses

was lea.med

in

all

the wisdom of the

Egyptians receive further confirmation, with

the addition, as we now know,

olthe

Baby

lonians

as well-not in the sense that he

had Babylonians for his personal instructors,

but because Babylonian modes of thought,

and civilizing influences, along 'with Egyptian,

predominated in the region in which he lived.

One further consideration.

We

hear

it

frequlntly repeated that the tradition of the

Israelite sojourn in Egypt is unhistorical,

because there was

no

room for a foreign

nomadic people in the thickly settled districts'

of

that country, and, on the other hand, that

the tradition of Abraham's enteling into

Canaan is open to the same objection from

the point of .view of Palestine. But what

are

we to

say of such suggestions,

in face

of

the fact

that the Inscriptions tell us of gradual

shirtings of peoples, and of the immigration of

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wandering

that

is nomadic. tribes into the

civilized territories of the Euphrates and

that

the Tel-el-Amarna. tablets desClibe exactly as

we

find related of Abraham Isaac and Jacob

the intrusion of nomadic tribes into Palestine

their moving to and fro among the settled

population appearing now here and now

there making peace or war with them and

as opportunity offered forcing

at

the point of

the sword towns and districts to become their

. allies and at length becoming settlers in the

land.

And.here at the conclusion of this current

of thought I am led to the consideration of

the aspect

n

which the Biblical Patriarchs are

presented. I shall not discuss here the argu

ment now

so

favoured that no people can

know its own original progenitor thatnations

o not take their oligin from persons but

are formed by the coalescence of tribes and

kinsmen. How

far

this contention

is

true or

false cannot be determined from the inscrip

tions at first sight. I will content myself

here therefore with remarking that tribes of

the kind represented in Genesis such as those

composed of the kinsmen of Abraham and

Jacob need not as we learn from the East

of to-day consist of

~ h o u s a n d s

of individuals.

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EARLY

BIBLE

HISTORY

There are small. tribes and clans which number

only

some two hundred souls, and in many

cases much fewet. The Turkish Government

has, in this connexion, lately prepared ex

tremely instructive statistics concerning the

Bedouin tribes ofthe Jaulan and Hauran, and

also of the north-eastern t-erritory beyond the

Jordan

1. t

appears moreover still the case

to-day, as

it

always was,

that

tribes, whether

great or small, either take their designation

from

some

district or region, or from

some

distinguished sheikh or chief of whom they

reckon themselves the sons. Thus are to

be

most readily explained such modern designa

tions as Beni Muhammed, Beni Abdallah,

Beni Abuhassan, Beni Aneze, Bani Shammar

I ,

1 Cf. Cornill, Guchichle II Yolke8 Israel p. S7

et

seq., and

also

the

numbel" in

the ZBitschrift tI deutsch

Palest

Yer

xxiii, 58, which go as low i l l some instances as SOO

and

500.

, Shammar, the name of the powerful tribe occupying

to-day Mesopotamia

and

Babylon, is primarily

that

of

a mountain range in the interior of Arsbia, but in the

South Arabian inscriptions

i t

appears, accordi.Jlg

to

Hommel,

as

a personal name. Cf Hommel's essay

on Glaser's inscriptions (12S8 et seq.

in

the

FeBtschrift

f r Ebers

lag7 p.

ago

The

tribe

came ultimately, there-

fore, from South Arabia, and took

its origin

from a

man.

This

is

in keeping with tradition; cf. Zeitschrift II

deuCSch

Palest Yer

xxiii. 49 : - The Aneze Bedouins who sprang

frOm 'Anaz Ibn Wa'il,

and t ~

Shammar Bedouins who

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and also many Old Testament tribe-names

such as Bene Hamor, Bene Abiezer, Bene

Jerahmeel

1

,

Bene Caleb,

c.,

and, further back,

the designations Bene Jacob, Bene Joseph,

and

Bene Israel,

c.

The more important consideration from our

point of view is,

that it

has now become the

custom to treat, without hesitation, such

names as Abraham, Jacob, Joseph,

c.,

partly

as tribe names, and their bearers

at

the same

time as unhistorica.l h ro s

eponymi

who

never existed partly to treat them offhand

.as ancient gods who had afterwards been

wrongly transformed into men.

It

was re

garded as a great discovery when, some

fifteen years ago, in

an

Egyptian inscrip

tion of the time of the Pharaoh Thothmes

(eire. 1500 B.

c.) the names Jacob and Joseph

(in the forms

a c o b ~ e l

and Joseph-e ) were

identified as designations of Palestinian tribes

or districts. Owing to the peculiarity

of

the

Egyptian language and of the mode of writing,

it

remained, indeed, a mere possibility tha.t the

hieroglyphics

c o n t a i n e ~

these actual names.;

are descendants of the celebrated Shammar." Cf. ibid.

xxiv. 29, note.

I.

I

Cf. the name

Jrl,lm in Ranke's

PersonBlIl Iamen

in

en

Urkunden dar ammumbiteit (1902), p. 49.

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

3

and, besides, several other intel pretations

were conceivable; but the joy over the dis

covery was too great for the exercise of

cl iticism. We know now

that

in

ancient.

times Jacob was

an

ordinary personal name,

-and

nothing more 1,

in

those eastern regions

fl om which, according to Israelite tradition,

the Patriarchs came. Consequently his name,

and

that

of Joseph and of the other Fathers,

came to be used in precisely the same way

for the Patriarchs of Israel.

But

what is the case in regard

to

Abra

ham 1

It

is now considered a distinguishing

mark of modem scholarship to regard him as

a Moon-god. Do not

Ur

and Hal l an, cele

brated seats of Babylonian and Assyrian

Moon-worship, stand in the closest relation

with his wanderings, and

do

not two goddesses

who are closely associated with the Moon

worship of Harran, bear the names Sarah

(Sarrat U) and Milcah (Malkat U),

that

is, Queen

and Princess1 What can be

mQre

natural,

then, than

that

Abraham, the husband of this

Sarah, and the relation of this Milcah, should

be himself the Moon-god 1 This is the old,

oft-repeated

tale, with additions, concerning

1 Ct.

Johns

Deeds

alld

Documents

vol.

iii

pp. 164, 407.

Hommel, Ancitmt Hebml Tmdition (Eng. Trans.), p. W3

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3 TIlE

BABYLONIAN EXOAVATIONS AND

t.heArabianDus re8,who,some twenty years ago,

was

put

forward as the husband of a goddess

Sarah

Dhu

in

Arabic

=

Lord),

that

is, as identi.

caJ with Abl'aham; which sounded at the time

as a sort of joke of ancient history-I should

say of fable-inasmuch as it represented Sarah,

who even according

to

Genesis was somewhat

hasty-tempered, as asserting her wifely autho

rity over her husband so far that she deprived

him even of his own designation, and caused

him to

go

down to history with her own name

only, as Dusares, that is, Husband of Sarah.

Unfortunately for this hypothesis. it turned

out afterwards that this Arabian Sarah was no

goddess at all,

but

the name of a mountain.

But joking apart, what can be concluded from

such accidental coincidences

in

sound of some

names associated with the person of Abraham,

so

long as

it

can be demonstrated that Biblical

tradition not only knows nothing of any divine

designation being involved

in

his name, or

in

that of his family, or of any divine worship

being paid to him

1

but, on the contrary, that,

both in Israel and outside it, Abram in the form

Abiram

2

and,

in

the ancient home of Israel,

1

Note

in

what a clear

and

varied manner

the

worship

of

heroes

in Ancient

Greece is attested,

and

consider

if

it

is

possible

that this

should have

vanished 80

utterly

out. of IsraeL

2

Johns, Deeds and Documents i i i II7; Hommel, Anmnt

Hebrew Tradition (Eng. version), p. 144.

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

33

Sarah 1 also, in the older form Sarai, as well as

Nahor

2

; a kinsman of Abraham (Gen.

ii

z3

et

seq.), were actual pel Sonal names

This point of view is supported

by

the fact

that

in

ancient times, and especially among

the Semites,

it

was not apparently the ordinary

course for gods to be made into men, but, on

the contrary, for men to

be

made into gods

s.

Gudea, one of the earliest kings of Babylon,

was honoured later, as we now know,

by

a temple and sacrifices. Sargon and other

kings are distinguished

in

the cuneiform script

by the designation for deity, and had thus

been elevated to gods. A similar custom ob

tained generally in Egypt, where the

Pharaoh

caused himself to be directly addressed as the

Sun-god. It is even high1y probable that

gods such as Bel were regarded as having

1

Bezold, Catalogue, vol. i, p. 1156. Milcah also appears

in

the

Insoription (Glaser), 11138 et seq. (See Hommel

in Ebers, p.

119.)

I Johns, op.

cit.

i i i 1117.

S For an interesting Egyptian example of this, see

K. Sathe,

Imhotep

ein

t:ergiJtlel teT

Mensch

0.,

19011.

The

celebrated Greek poet Archilochus

(circ. 650

B.O.) was in

subsequent

times

worshipped as a hero. There is even

in Arabia to-day a hero-worship. The latest instance

known to me is the celebrated Arabian traveller Burck

hardt who became a convert to Islamism, and has been

honoured since

his

death as a

Saint wert)

(Zeitschr.

d.

Deutsch.

Pal.

YeF.

1907. p. 190).

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been buried, and as having thus died like

mortals,

to e

raised afterwards, through the

cult of the dead, to the position of deities.

So also

it

is highly probable

that

those enor

mous stepped towers of ancient Baby Ionia,

which served as observatories for the Chal

dean astronomers and

astrologers-and

be

came perhaps the type for the Egyptian

pyramids-were

Oliginally nothing more

than

imposing burying-places, mausolea of

gods and of kings raised to divine dignity 1.

1

This comparison is instructively illustrated by

the

case of

lIarduk

or of Osiris n Egypt), owing

to

the

solar

character

of this

deity. The

setting of the

sun is

the

death of the god, who goes

into

Hades Arallu) as his

grave, to rise again on

the

morrow,

or

in

the

Spring.

When

the

king dies,

he

proceeds, because

he

is a god,

to

the

departed

god, who is

regarded, however, as dwell

ing in the mountain of the

gods above the under-world.

These towers are thus comprehensible as representatives

of the mountain ofthe gods, that is, of tombs of the gods.

The

god is ideally represented as buried here, for people

pretend to see

and honour

his grave;

but

in reality it is

the

tomb

of

a king.

Apart

even from

the

view

that the

dead

and

buried god was once a man,

the

sequence of

thought

is thus in \ certain measure rendered clearer.

But

it

is

still

a

matter of

question whether this representl\

tion exhausts the meaning, and whether this line

of

thought

was

the

original one. In

the

case where

the

god is regarded not simply as interred under the mountain

of the gods in Hades, but as buried in the tower,

it

would

appear

that the

grave indicates much more probably the

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY

35

In

this manner may be explained the tomb

of Osiris, as well as the many tombs of

heroes to be found in various regions, the

explanation being independent of the con

sideration whether these represented actual

or supposed burying-places. I know of no

instances on tbe other hand, in Bible regions

and outside them, where it can be proved

satisfactorily

that

a god was transformed into

a man 1.. How would it be at

a ll

possible to

actual tomb of an actual dead body,

and

thus that of

a

man

to whom divine dignity was given. I t was only

at a later period, however early this period may have

been, that theory seems.to have associated Arallu

with

the

towers. Cf. note

1

on p. 36.

1

Where

the

names of gods

are

ascribed to men,

this

is to be explained

in

the

first instance

in

historic time

at

all events) as an example of hypocoristic shortening,

that is, of so-called pet-names. Thus are to e explained

such names as Marduk in Assyria, Gad

n

Israel;

cf.

the Sanscrit Deva for Deva-datta

and

the German Theo

for Theodore. Agamemnon doubtless appears as a

desig

nation of Zeus in Greece,

and

may be thus regarded as

the

actual name of

an

ancient deity. The same is

the

ease

with

other names of early times, such as Erechtheus,

Menelaos, Helena

? SelAn ),

AchiIleus, Lycurgus perhaps

-Zeus-Lykaios).

But

the

factthat

Lycurgus

is

spoken of,

probably at the same time, as

an

historic person calls

for consideration, and shows that we have here to do

with

forms

in

which

the

mythological element

is

secondary heroes of

myth

in the first instance,

and not

of a cult). It is probable

that

they were first raised to the

divine dignity, with changed designations, through the

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36 THE


explain the death of

a

god, even of

a

Sun

god, or of

a

god of the lower world,

if

not on

the assumption that he w80s in the last resort

a man, or a hero, raised to the position of

deity and worshipped in his tomb 11

The whole theory of a god called

Abrah80m

is thus intrinsica.lly improbable. As we see,

on the other hand, that the wanderings of the

8oncestor

of

Isr80el

through

Ur

and Harran

correspond with

f8octs

th80t furthermore the

name Abraham

W80s

a

current personal designa

tion

in

ancient times, and finally,

that

a

peculiarly important chapter of the Biblical

nalT8otive-Genesis

xiv-in

which Abraham

plays the chief part, hands down to us names

and circumstances which we may

c ~ i m

to be

historica.1

and which, moreover, are otherwise

cult of the dead, with which here also the ancient astral

religion may have been associated. Such forms as the

Dioscuroi, moreover, cannot be adduced as contrary in

stances. They do indeed appear in

human

form,

but

always only

ll hoc and

are never really regarded as men.

The life

and

action of

men

such as we find described

in

the cases of Menelaos andAgamemnon, are never ascribed

to

them.

1

Cf.

the case of the tomb of Minos (son of Zeus), who

was slain in Sicily, which in Crete came later to be

regarded as

the

grave of Zeus, although containing the

bones of Minos. (See Helbig

in

Roscher s

Lexicon

i i

~

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EARLY BIBLE HISTORY 7

known to us only through ancient inscrip

tions while they have disappeared elsewhere

we

al e

surely entitled

to

conclude

thaJ;

there

is a high probability th t Abraham was an

actual historical personage in early Hebrew

times and that . even where the account pre

sents imperfect details or partially obliterated

traces of the original circumstances a correct

reminiscence has on the whole been preserved

I am fully aware indeed that this of itself

is not sufficient to place the historical character

of Abraham beyond all doubt A convincing

proof of this nature by exact historical me

thods remains yet to

be

furnished in spite of

all that has been

and continues t be, insisted

upon: and I must recall in this connexion

the warning which I gave t the outset as

to exaggerated expectations I do not more

over belong

to

those who make the main

tenance of the personality of Abraham a

shibboleth of the Christian faith. But I a.m

all the more confident in declaring it as

my well-considered and scientific conviction

that in the present state of our knowledge

there is nothing to require us to regard

Abraham as a mythical or legendary figure

but rather th t many and strong arguments

speak clearly for the contrary. With this

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38

Tm:

BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS ND

from the purely historical point of view we

must and may well

be

content. If

we

would

look for further proofs and why as Christian

men should

we

not seek them--they are to

be

found in another domain

that

of religion.

So much in regard to historical tradition

in the stricter sense. But I must not leave

the subject without emphasizing the fact that

what has been adduced represents only a

small part of the exuberantly rich material

which ensta. Biblical tradition however is

not merely historical in

character;

it

is likewise

a tradition of religious conceptions and institu

tions. These religious elements in fact con

stitute an essential

part

of the Biblical idea of

the universe from which we learn that God

created the world that afterwards sin came

into it and that when sin got the upper hand

a great Hood broke over it;

that

God after

wards set apart for Himself amid the heathen

population a selected people and granted to

this selected people

a participation n the

pure knowledge of Himself.

Now

it

is precisely to this peculiar Biblical

conception of the universe that from the

point of view of Babylon any independent

existence is at present denied. On the

con-

trary what we had formerly regarded as dis-

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tillctive in the Biblical conception of the

universe has been lately claimed as really

Babylonian. There is,

it

is contended, no-

thjng peculiarly Biblical

01'

Israclitish in the

scriptural tradition, nothing

that

is not Baby-

Ionian; and all

that

we have appropriated

from

it

as a

part

of our religious belief is

at

bottom outlandish mythology, Babylonian

heathenism, which

we

consequently ought to

get rid of as soon as possible.

But

is it

the case

that

what

we

have ac-

cepted about these mattei's is really a Baby-

lonian conception of the universe 1

It

is upon

this question,

in

my opinion,

that

the emphasis

lies; for that

there are Babylonian elements

in our Biblical traditions, or

at

any rate

Baby Ionian parallels to them, there can

be

no doubt.

Assuming that the

Biblical account of the

Creation and the Flood are uni versally known,

I confine myself t presenting here their

heathen

parallels:-

When on high the heavens were not yet

named, and below the firmament not

yet

de-

signated . . . then were the gods formed

thus begins the Babylonian myth of Creation.

This beginning might really

suffice but

let

us

hear the continuation:

In

the beginning

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40


the chaotic waters, called Tiimat, held sway.

They were the enemies of order. As the gods

wished

to

create

from

these an orderly world,

Tiimat

arose as a dragon against thelP.

Ignominious terror seized the gods, until

Marduk, the god of the Spring-sun, undertook

to

battle with the monster and its companions.

He conquered H cut the dragon into two

halves, and made out of one the heaven,

out of the other n like manner the earth,

upon which he then brought forth animals

and men 1.

Of the Flood we read an account, as part

of a great epic, which tells us of the hero

Oilgames, and aims at giving us information

respecting Life, Death, and Hereafter. The

account of the Flood, which possibly may

once have had an independent existence, occurs

in a mere episode, and is narrated to Oil

games by Ut-napistim 2 his grandfather, to

whose presence he

had wandered in order

to

obtain immortality. Ut-napistim, called also

Xisuthros, is the Biblical Noah. Accol'ding to

Cf. Keilinschr. Bt bl., vi. 41

547.

According to Ranke, op

cit.

p. 14, Ud-Samas;

the

name is

thus

perhaps Samas-Napistim.

Cf.

also Hommel,

Die allor. D8f1km

tid

d

A

T. 1902, p.

24.

(Pinches reads

Pir-Napistim, Tr.)

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EABLY BIBLE HISTORY 41

him the great gods, Bel at their head, had re

solved to destroy mankind; but the water-god

~

through whom this was

to

be accomplished,

betrayed the plan

to

his favourite, and also told

him of a means of escape. He must build

an

ark. And now follow, in the narrative, inci

dents which have a striking resemblance to,and

in

many cases are

in

almost verbal coincidence

with, the account in Genesis. The waters

rise; he enters, along with his family, into

the ship;

it

is driven upon a high mountain,

Nizir; he sends out a dove, which, finding no

resting-place, returns, c.

Even if it were possible-though hardly

with good

reason to

remain doubtful on the

subject

in

reference to the story of Creation,

it is at least manifest that certain elements in

the account of the Flood al e connected with

the Biblical narrative, This has been known

for a long time, and for many years past has

./

formed a subject for discussion

in

all our

theological lecture-rooms.

The only question

we

have to discuss

is,

how is it

to be

explained 1 An easy answer

is ready at hand, The whole account, exactly

as it had been here written down, found its

way,

it

is alleged, to Canaan

:

here

it

was

1 Delitzsch,

abel

nil Bibel p. 31,

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44/81


somewhat modified-to its disadvantage in

deed and

thus arose the Biblical tradition.

In

this case

it

is therefore natural as has beel\

lately said with more daring than felicity

that the Babylonian form should be the purer

and more primitive

1

and hence

it

would

seem to

be

demonstrated that the early Bible

history is nothing more than a fragment

deplorably misunderstood and distorted out of

shape

bOlTowed

from Babylonian Paganism.

This might perhaps be tenable

if

the case

were one of a general agreement between the

two accounts with some unimportant diver

gences or even misunderstandings; but not

when as the case stands the differences in

volved are

n

reality the

most

essential part

of the matter. These differences show

that

we

are on entirely different ground and that even

n instances where the words may be the same

another and altogether different spirit breathes

in them. Weare in a sphere differing toto

coelo

from

that

of

Babylon it is

quite another

world; there

it

is the sphere of a heathen

nature-worship with all its concomitants

here

it

is

that

of a revealed and monotheistic

religion.

The beginning of the Babylonian Creation-

1

Delitzsch

Babel

un Bibel

p 29.

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EARLY BIBLE mSTORY 4

epic sounds like an extract from Hesiod's

theogony. Cosmogony and theogony con

verge together; that is the deity himself

comes into existence first; he is himself an

element of nature and arises with it and

from

it. And furthermore, the creation of

the world is represented as the issue of

a conflict between the deity and opposing

nature, which

is

described as a dangerous ad

versary. This is the Babylonian view. -In

the other, on the contrary, the Spirit of God

the creative Will and Omnipotent Word, ap

pears as the sovel'eign Lord over Nature-and

there is nothing of opposition and conflict.

Bere, moreover,

we

have an act of grace,

haVing as its aim a long sacred history, and

not a nature-myth of the ocean and the vernal

sun I

The same is the case with the account of

the Flood.

n

the one case

we

have a fatal

judgement of Bel

hanging

over mankind

no one knows exactly why: if they have

sinned,

it

is urged

by

the other gods

in

the

way of criticism, let the guilty and the guilty

1 Many think that we have here to do

with

a direct

opposition, as K6berle

in the

AUg. Ev.-Luth. Kirch. Zeit.

1902

p.

627: .

They tell fables of Marduk's

battle; he

endeavours

to

show how God, thtl only living God, ill

in truth the Creator.

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44

THE BABYLONIAN EXCAVATIONS

AND

only be punished-and the rescue of a single

individual by the blind caprice of Eo.; in

the other the holy ruling of a

just

Judge.

n the one case discord and disunion among

the gods themselves one of them endeavour

ing to outwit the others; the terror of the

gods as the waters

rise-as

dogs

it

is said

they crouch down and Istar cries aloud for

fear as a woman in travail; then further on

the animal-greed over the meat-offering-as

flies it is said they collect around the sacri

fice-not

to speak of many worse things con

tained in other places of the epic

1.

On the

other hand we have the dignified self-posses

sion and the sacred calm of One Who knows

that

He must act as He does for the sake of

the holy standard which He Himself has given

to the world.

t will be seen at once from these considera

tions

that we

have to

do

with an independent

form either brought to Canaan from Babylon

or representing a tradition shared with the

latter by Israel and thus in

the

last analysis

1 Events and circumstances which elsewhere are in

dustriously veiled

are

broadly

treated with

too cynical

an

openness for ur feelings.

Even

i f it were a

matter

. of representing such things symbolically

in

a myth the

method must appear strange. We may compare with

this the moral indignation at the conduct of Ham.

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EARLY BmLE HISTORY 5

derived from one original. According to the

first hypothesis, the tl ansformation of the

received material implies at the same time a

thorough purifying and refining of it; Which

of the two hypotheses is correct cannot be

determined with absolute certainty.

But even if the former hypothesis be ac-

cepted, as many

do

we have not done with

the matter

by supposing as

Fried. Delitzsch

says n regard to the Biblical account of the

Creation that the priestly Israelite scribe,

who transcribed the Babylonian epic, re-

stricted himself

to

the removal of the mytho-

logical features

1.

What a purely external

representation

of

the circumstances I But even

assuming this to have been the course pursued,

the scribe was not content with merely putting

away these features, he disallowed them alto-

gether; he laid strong hands upon his material,

reforming and reconstructing it; and there

can be no question

that

such a rejection or

complete transformation of mythological ideas

would imply a far more pregnant and original

c ~

of genius than

that

involved

n

their first

conception I .

But I am forced

to

reject this whole method

1 Delltzsch, op. cit. p. 34.

t

Cf. KOberle,

op cit. coL

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48/81


of representation, as though an Israelite or

Jewish priest had handled the Babylonian

records after the manner of a modem editor,

borrowing

a piece here, omitting a passage

there, and supplying another in its place. t

may, indeed, have been the case, as certain

indications show

1,

that. even in early times in

the far west, and thus also in Palestine, Baby-

lonian records had been carefully studied

2;

and this,

if

a fact, may explain the presence

of verbal coincidences n the two traditions-

the Biblical and the Babylonian. Literary

activity, and for aught I know to the con-

trary, the student's closet, may perhaps

have thus influenced the formulating of the

documents; but the material and the spirit

which gave it shape did not proceed from

thence. It is also possible that those are

quite right who say that

the

Babylonian

account made its way, exactly as it was

written down, to Canaan. Why should not

this be the case considering the active mental

intercourse in these regions, and that too at a

very early date 1 But this does not solve the

1

Cf. Niebuhr,

Die Amarnazeit

p. 4 and Delitzsch,op.

cit.

p.

89.

II Genesis, chap. xiv., may be explained

in the

same

way.

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49/81


problem, for the phenomena in question re

main unexplained.

This much is clear: with aU

their points

of contact, the two traditions are so entirely

different, that we can only assume that each

of them must have had a long way to travel

from the time of their separation. Nothing

but an independent development, for centuries

long, of the two formerly united streams can

explain the phenomena. Here we come for

the first time into close contact with our

subject, and to a point where it becomes clear

that the student s closet and the editor s

table even in

the case in which their joint

action may have been possib1e-are insufficient

to explain the matter. No doubt we should

have at our disposal such a long course of

development if we could assume, as many

now

do

_hat the material had wandered far

and wide in the Tel-el-Amarna period, had

afterwards been recast in Israel, and been

reduced to writing later on

in

its new form

1.

I will not say that this explanation, which

receives support from other considerations,

is untenable, although

it

is attended with

the difficulty

that

Israel must in this case

1

This is

the

position taken up, in all essentials,

y

Zimmern, Gunkel, Oettli,

0.

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8

THE


have obtained the material through the instru

mentality of the Canaanites; a circumstance

which is not indeed without analogy but

which

if

assumed is also exposed t objec

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