,-'•*■

THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES

GIFT OF

nraun

CROWN THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY

VOL. I.
DELITZSCH'S BABEL AND BIBLE

BABEL and BIBLE

£\vo Xectures

Delivered before the Members of the Deutsche Orient-
Gesellschaft in the presence of the German Emperor

FRIEDRICH DELITZSCH

ORDINARY PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL PHILOLOGY AND ASSYRIOLOOY
IN THE UNIVERSITY OK BERLIN

Edited, with an Introduction, by
C. H. W. JOHNS, M.A.

WILLIAMS AND NORGATE

I4 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON
AND J BROAD STREET, OXFORD

NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM^ SONS

iy°3

13 S'

Introduction

The announcement that Professor Friedrich

Delitzsch, the great Assyriologist, had been

granted leave to deliver a lecture upon the

relations between the Bible and the recent

results of cuneiform research, in the august

presence of the Kaiser and the Court, naturally

caused a great sensation ; in Germany first,

and, as a wider circle, wherever men feel

interest in the progress of Science. The

lecture was duly delivered on the 13th of

January 1902, and repeated on the 1st of

February.

Some reports of the general tenour of the

discourse reached the outside world, and it

was evident that matters of the greatest

interest were involved. In due course

1003913

vi Introduction

appeared a small book with the text of the
lecture, adorned with a number of striking
pictures of the ancient monuments. This was
the now celebrated Babel und Bibel.

The title was a neat one, emphasizing the
close relation between the results of cuneiform
studies and the more familiar facts of the
Bible. The greater part of these relationships
was well known, not only to Assyriologists.
hut also to all interested in Biblical Archae-
ology. Those who had glanced through the
recent aids to Bible study, Hastings' Dictionary
of the Bible, the Encyclopaedia Biblica, or
even the humbler guides compiled for Sunday
School teachers, in this country and in
America, felt themselves on very familial-
ground. The chief cause for pleasure was
that it was all so freshly and temperately set
out. No doubt some felt a little disappointed
|at so conservative a treatment. Those who
were familiar with recent work, such as is
so ably summarized in the third edition of
Schrader's Cuneiform Inscriptions mxl the Old

Introduction vii

Testament, felt that the Professor had been
rather too sparing of his parallels. But, we
reflected, there are limits to what one can
put in a popular lecture. Many of us knew
the cautious, deliberate way in which Professor
Delitzsch had always set out his views, and
the reluctance he had always shewn to make
use of what he had not discovered, or at least
worked out, for himself. Hence we were
convinced that he had only stated what he
felt to be indisputable. It was very readable,
and would, we hoped, be widely read and
digested as a preparation for further advance.

It came, therefore, as a shock of surprise to
find that rejoinders were being issued. A
rapid succession of articles, reviews, and re-
plies appeared in newspapers and magazines,
and a whole crowd of pamphlets and books.
These regarded the lecture from many varied
points of view, mostly with disapproval. The
champions of the older learnings assailed it
from all sides. Even those who had been
forward to admit nothing but a human side to

viii Introduction

the history and literature of Israel were eager
to tall on the new pretender to public favour:
and. to the astonishment of many, there arose
a literature ;///// Strcit ion Bibel mid Babel.

As the echoes of this conflict reached our
cars, we seemed to gather that the higher
critics, usually known for their destructive
habits, were now engaged in defending, in
so] in- way. the Bible against the attacks of
an archaeologist and cuneiform scholar. This
seemed a reversal of the order of nature. We
had been used to regard the archaeologist, espe-
cially the Assyriologist. as one who had rescued
much of the Bible history from the scepti-
cism of literary critics. Some of the archaeo-
logical defences had seemed to yield too much.
but we felt that more knowledge would im-
prove that Confidence was not much shaken.
Had we not in our own British Museum the
greatest collection of material in the world
lor the elucidation of Scripture, which was
being issued as rapidly as the meagre resources
devoted to such purposes allow '. Had we not

Introduction ix

scholars amongst us who were fully cognisant
of all that could be said on such points ? They
had sounded no note of alarm. They were
evidently firmly convinced of the truth of
the old familiar watchwords. Could we be
disturbed when the chief efforts of the Church
were being directed to the support of a govern-
ment who would secure to it the ownership
of its school buildings ? We could hardly
dream that indifference to Church teaching
was ultimately due to a conviction of its
worthlessness.

Some of the attacks on the position taken
by Professor Delitzsch were so evidently un-
fair, and based on such scanty knowledge of at
least one side of his argument, that we rather
wondered at his silence. The attacks almost
answered themselves, yet we wondered at the
self-restraint which refrained from scoring an
easy victory. Then we learnt the reason. The
Professor was in Babylonia itself. When he
came back there would be a bad time for some
people.

\ Introduction

So when the great Professor was once more
bidden to deliver a lecture in the presence of
the Kaiser and the Court, which took place on
the 12th of January 1903, we expected to
have some hard hitting. But that was. after
all. scarcely the place for a polemic, and we
must be grateful for the new and valuable con-
tributions to knowledge which it contained.
One could not fairly expect to know the chief
results of German exploration in Babylonia,
but there is much that is new and helpful.

But now reports of a very disquieting nature
reached us. Our papers had it from their
correspondents that a very direct attack was
made on Holy Scripture, and even, it was
not obscurely hinted, on the fundamental doc-
trines of the Catholic Faith. The storm broke
out afresh in Germany, and spread hither also.
We learnt, to our amazement, not exactly
realizing the Kaisers position as Summits
Episcopus, that he had seen Ht to address a
letter, the text of which appeared in the Times
of February 25th.

Introduction xi

That lectures, even on such an interesting
subject, could lead to measures of such high
state policy was a guarantee that the matter
had passed beyond the circles of scholarship
and research, and was become a matter of
national concern. We could not afford to
remain longer in ignorance of what had
stirred our allies so profoundly. We dared
not trust to newspapers alone ; but, failing
Blue Books on the subject, had better read
for ourselves what Professor Delitzsch had
said. Hence the present translation has
been called for.

The reader will not fail to recognize that
these are lectures. The opening words of the
first lecture evidently join on to some report
upon the w r ork done by the German Oriental
Society's explorers in the East. Theirs are
" these labours." " Babel " is what we ordi-
narily call Babylon and Babylonia. Many
phrases are not such as one would write in
a treatise, and evidently are appropriate to a
lecture illustrated by diagrams. The reader

xii Introduction

will inert with many quotations from the
Bible in an unfamiliar form. They are the
Professor's own translations direct from the
Hebrew, or Greek, into German, retranslated
into English. Where, however, the usual
version would serve as well, it has been given
in place of a fresh rendering. Other familiar
tonus are retained, when no mistake is likely
to arise. Thus Yahwfe is s () well established
in English usage that there seemed no reason
to use Jahve, except where the likeness to
Jahu, etc., was important. The / in such
words as Iasuh is. of course, the German J,
our Y. So, too, the v is sounded like our w.
The German always writes Sardanapallus for
the name of the Assyrian king, son of Esar-
haddon. who appears in Ezra iv. 10 as Asnapper,
hut has been known in England for many
years as Ashur-banipal, a form more elosely
recalling the original than the Greek does.
The mark under // in such words as Ham-
murabi denotes that the letter is sounded like
ch in inch, and is often rendered by writing kh.

Introduction xiii

But in early Babylonian times the sound
could hardly have been so distinct, for it is
often dropped, e.g. we find also Ammu-rabi.
In the Assyrian or Babylonian words s is
written for ,9// ; .s- for ts, or st ; k for a sign
often rendered q ; and t represents the Hebrew
teth, not tau.

To Professor Delitzsch belongs the high
credit of having discerned the true meaning
of those fragments of an earlier legislation
preserved, in late copies, in the Library of
Ashurbanipal. They had been called a Code
Ashurbanipal, and Dr. Meissner had already
pointed out their great likeness to the con-
tracts of the First Dynasty of Babylon. But
apart from what was said on p. 35, Professor
Delitzsch had already, in December 1901,
applied the name Code Hammurabi to them,
practically at the very moment when the fuller
text of that Code was being unearthed at
Susa. Anyone who cares to read the article
in the Beitragc zur Assyriologie, iv. pp. 78-87,
and compare it with the previous studies there

\i\ Introduction

referred to, will sec that this was no mere
lucky guess ; bul was led up to by a chain of
close reasoning, such as gives us the highesl
confidence in the results and methods of
Assvrioloffv, at least in Professor Delitzsch's
hands. He could not then have known of the
discovery. The text was not published till
October L902.

When a man has been deeply immersed in
an exacting study for many years he has a
right to express opinions as well as to register
tacts. Whether the qualifications which make
a man a successful investigator are always
associated with those that enable a man to
take a just view <>t* the whole subject and its
bearing upon other cognate subjects, may be
doubted. Hut if the opinions do not coincide
with those formed by others, with more or
less acquaintance with the same facts, there
is a fail' field for discussion. It will be in the
remembrance of most that some facts on
which Professor Delitzsch relics for his positions
have been used in the past to prove something

Introduction xv

very different. 1 In fact, if, us some of liis
opponents urge, his identifications do not
hold, some of ns will have to surrender some
favourite bulwarks of the Old Testament.
We seem to have a repetition of an old ex-
perience. Something is discovered which is
first hailed as a remarkable confirmation of
Scripture, then seen to be a serious impeach-
ment of its accuracy, finally known to be purely
independent and unconnected. It is an in-
direct testimony to the abiding value of the
Hebrew Scriptures that the first question for
most people concerning each new discovery
is, How does it bear on the Bible ?

Now, it is not an editor's function to reply
to the arguments or opinions advanced in the
work he edits, nor even to suppress and
modify them, but to endeavour to place them
as fairly as can be before the reader. A com-
mentator might find it necessary to add

1 Dr. S. Kinns' Graven in the Rock, Urqu hart's The
Bible and Modern Discoveries, Hommel's Ancient Israelite
Tradition.

\\i Introduction

explanatory notes, supplementary information.
or even references to other views. These are
excluded by the plan of this work. Professor
Delitzsch has acted as his own commentator,
and in the notes will be found his replies to
many critics and a fairly full list of the litera-
ture of the controversy. The great aim of
this work is to let him speak for himself, and
of this introduction to bespeak for him a fair
hearing. Hence it must not be considered
that this introduction pledges the editor to
any view, for or against, any of the positions
taken up in the work itself. Speculations as
to his sympathies are disavowed in advance.

The worthy Professor somewhat pathetically
complains that the public has hitherto taken
but little note of the work done by scholars
on the ( )ld Testament. His lecture has had
the result of attracting public notice enough.
Xot to speak of editions up to 40. 000. replies
already in a ninth edition, and a whole litera-
ture to itself, Babel mid Bibcl is now a
historic event. Whether such publicity brings

Introduction xvii

joy to the scholar may be doubted, but it is
good for the public. Let us hope it may
awaken interest in both Biblical study and
Oriental exploration. Neither can afford to
do without the other. Both need far more
general support.

Some of the criticisms which the controversy
has called forth perfectly dazzle our eyes to
read. In an age when almost any argument is
enough to base a popular cause upon, when
men let themselves be led captive by the most
specious nonsense, we are used to the publica-
tion of tilings as meaningless as the scrawlings
of planchette. But even these meet with so
much acceptance that they become a peril-
ous influence on ill-regulated minds. Con-
temptuous silence is accepted as admission
of doubt or lack of faith. Hence there is need
for men who have knowledge to learn the art
of making it available for public use.

One favourite device of the critics who have
replied to Professor Delitzsch has been to
fasten on some side issue. Often they attack

wiii Introduction

Assyriology as if that were the enemy. It
was much the same when the New Learning
came to pave the way for the Reformation,
and Greek was regarded as an invention of
the devil.

There are uncertainties, room for different
opinions, in Assyriology, as there were doubts
about Greek, some of which still remain. Hut
some of the statements about Assyriology are
so misleading as to call for vigorous treatment.
Thus one reads that inasmuch as the cuneiform
script employs some 20.000 sign groups and
about 000 single signs, while the Hebrew has
but >M signs, there must be a wide field
for uncertainty. The numbers are scarcely
accurate. Briinnow's Classified Sign List only
shews 13,000 sign groups, many of which are
single signs, and 410 single signs, some of
which arc numerals. That each sign has many
tonus, according to the age of the script, may
perhaps be the source of the confusion. Hut
we do not count Old English, Gothic, and all
the modern sorts of type as separate signs.

Introduction xix

Even grunting the numbers to be correct,
what follows ? One might as well object that
since in Algebra a sign may denote any
quantity whatever, even such as have no real
value, therefore no Algebraical result was of
numerical value. All depends upon the laws
of combination and operation to which they
are subjected. Provided all the signs arc
known in value, or obey such laws that their
value can be readily deduced, their number
is no hindrance, but rather a help. The
vaunted simplicity of the 37 Hebrew signs is
delusive. If they are so readily confounded
one with another as textual critics suggest
when they emend their texts, one may sigh for
•20,000 unmistakable sign groups. Even if
they are certain, what reliance can be placed on
a script that uses the same signs to write
Babel, Bible, and " babble" '. All depends on
knowing how the vowels, accents, etc., may be
supplied. The cuneiform writes its vowels in
full, even marking their length in many cases.
Of course, an inscription may be so injured by

w Introduction

erasure or exposure as to be almost illegible.
So may a manuscript he. But here is the con-
trast, [f an inscription is really legible its
reading is easier, and more certain, than that of
any manuscript unvocali/.ed. Who shall say
the vocalization is correct in the latter case '.
At any rate it is a late tradition.

When once an inscription is read, there may
be lexical and grammatical difficulties. These
are not unknown in Hebrew : they are more
numerous than many, even good scholars,
suspect. That men are conventionally agreed
as to the sense of so many words in the Old
Testament is often a disguised admission of
the smallness of their knowledge. It may be
perfect within the limits of their literature,
hut it is circumscribed by the limits of that
literature. That men are still uncertain of the
meaning of so many Hebrew words, after an
infinitely larger amount of study bestowed on
the language, is a warning to them to adopt
fresh methods. That they have anything to
teach a science, which by the labour of a few

Introduction xxi

score men, for the most part unendowed with
great means or much leisure for the pursuit
of their study, has already attained a greater
degree of certainty, is a contention not likely
to be long maintained. The test for the un-
biassed is to acquire an elementary acquaint-
ance with the subject.

Uncertainty there is, and always must be,
about the reading of defaced or fragmentary
inscriptions. Hut the continual discovery of
duplicates, which preserve entire lost portions
of earlier known inscriptions ; the immense
amount of material, perhaps 100,000 tablets in
the British Museum alone ; the habit cuneiform
scribes had of using various ways of writing
the same word, a habit which constantly settles
and confirms old readings ; the fact that we
have now plenty of bilinguals, giving renderings
of cuneiform in Aramaic and Greek letters,
not one of which has unsettled a reading
hitherto accepted ; place the results of cunei-
form research in a much stronger position than
any which could be deduced from a scries of

wii Introduction

inscriptions in any mere Semitic alphabet.
The only sensible course, then, for a man
who doubts the results is to learn how
they are obtained, and. it* possible, cheek
the process of deduction. lie will find that
the period of guesswork is over, and that
decipherment is now a matter of the strictest
logic.

That all results are unimpeachable is not
true, for such things as hapaoc legomena occur.
or phrases which by their invariable context,
though often repeated, may be without the
elucidation given by a more extended use in
a variety of contexts. But, ever and anon,
fresh texts present these words or phrases in
fresh connections, and something of the old
uncertainty gets shaded off, if not entirely re-
moved. Hut. as a rule, in the historical texts
the language is capable of a more minute
grammatical analysis than can be safely applied
to Hebrew, Aramaic, or Phoenician inscriptions.
The more technical texts, astronomical or
astrological, omens, magical or medical, are

Introduction xxiii

obscure, mainly because the subject itself is
remote from our comprehension.

Much of the present security of cuneiform
research is due to Professor Delitzsch. Long
a teacher of beginners and a compiler of
lexicons and grammar, he was always setting
in order the foundations. Only lately has he
begun to build upon them. Here, perhaps, it
will turn out that he has not displayed sufficient
caution. Those will come off best who try to
shew that different conclusions may be drawn
from his facts. They will not be well advised
to quarrel with the facts. How dangerous
that may be is seen by the humiliating position
in which Professor P. Jensen has placed himself. 1
It does not do even for one of the foremost
of Assyriologists to assume that he knows all
there is behind Professor Delitzsch's assertions.
In a formal treatise one demands full proof: in
a lecture what is sometimes called the method
of English scholarship is demanded, as con-
trasted with that of Germany, namely, a clear
1 See p. 143, Notes,

wiv Introduction

dogmatic statement of results, rather than an
exhibition of the machinery and process by
which they arc reached. In a first presentation
of results the so-called German method is
preferable. We want to see how they are
obtained and so estimate their soundness. In a
popular lecture this method is excluded. Few.
if any. could attempt it : fewer follow it.
What is needed is a clear statement of results
and an avoidance of matters of doubtful inter-
pretation. For a modest statement of facts it
would be difficult to surpass this lecture. The
deductions arc subject to revision as more facts
are taken into account. But it will not do to
assume that the Professor has done a "bit of
special pleading" and used up all the facts that
suit his view, while leaving others ignored.
The Professor could easily swell his list of facts
manyfold, and. if he cannot lay his hand on
them at once, there are many others who can.
Anyone who desires to traverse his position
successfully must be prepared with an alterna-
tive theory, which will not only fit all the facts

Introduction xxv

adduced, but innumerable others of the same
kind.

The explanation that men in similar circum-
stances hit upon similar devices, and thus
reach similar institutions, is true enough. But
it has not much point when the actual contacts
between Babylonia and the people of Israel
are considered. The fundamental assumption
that the evolution of religious ideas went on
in an orderly sequence in Israel, an assumption
used to date the documents, is rudely shaken
by the reflection that many ideas may have been
adopted from Babylon and that the order of
development there was not a synchronous
order. Much that has been regarded as
Persian in origin may turn out to be older
than Abraham. But with such questions we
have not to do here, only to note that they ex-
plain the antipathy of a school which might have
been expected to welcome Delitzsch's work.
One thing is certain, the opponent who appeals
to authority, whether of the early Church or
of the recent critic, will meet short shrift. If

wvi Introduction

these lectures arc l<> be answered the Professor

must be met on his own ground, and thai with
better knowledge of cuneiform than most of his
critics have shewn. The men who know have
cither preserved a discreet silence or gently
chided him for some immaterial side issue. If
the theologians are in future to deal success-
fully with such attacks on cherished positions.
they must learn, and make provision for the
teaching of Assyriology. They must include
it in their curriculum.

The men who claim to decide everything by
their own mother-wit have condemned the
Professor and tried to influence the public by
an appeal to sentiment and prejudice. \\ <
wish that the man. his facts and his conclusions.
should have a patient hearing. The lectures
will at least he found free- of the ill-natured
nibcs at us which pass for wit with some of his
ciitics. There is no need to swallow every-

•

thing whole, nor to toss the Bible on the shell'
as antiquated rubbish. If the Bible owes
much lo Babylonia, so do astronomy, mathe-

Introduction xxvii

matics, and medicine. We use still the
Babylonian time measures and perhaps also
their space measures. The debt of Greece
and Rome to Babylon has yet to find its
Delitzsch, but he is soon to appear.

Much has been made of the pain which
comes to those who see old beliefs perish. But
that is salutary pain. We have all to take
pains, or pain. Either we must learn, research,
investigate, deduce, conclude, or, if we will
not take such pains, we are liable at any time
to suffer pain from finding some cherished
belief perish, without our being able to defend
it, or even give it decent obsequies. As Dr.
Kinns of old said, when he had proved to his
satisfaction that the ark did not really harbour
lions and tigers (in which he proved more a
destructive critic than Professor Delitzsch),
"It may seem a little too bad to deprive
pictures and children's toys of this interesting
feature, but there is strong evidence . . . ." ;
so when there is strong evidence we can only
feel pity for those who have believed many

xxviii Introduction

things on evidence no better than that which
justified the lions and tigers. Whether Dr.
Delitzsch has produced strong evidence or not
is not for the editor to decide. That would be
to step into the shoes of the artist and the
toy maker. It is the object of this work
to enable the reader to judge for himself.
.Men really must learn to have opinions of
their own.

They accepted what they were told as babies.
As men they need to put away childish things.
They are babes still if they accept what is told
them with no more effort to examine and
verify. To throw aside all. and henceforth
believe nothing, is as childish as before. To
such adult infants this book may give the
elements of an education such as they sorely
need. If their so-called faith be unsettled, a
very little more education will very likely
settle it again: or. which comes to much the
same thing with this sort of faith, they will for-
get all about it and believe as much or as little
as before, the same things or something else,

Introduction xxix

with equal complacency. The men of deep
religious faith, who alone count for the progress
of the race, will rejoice and take courage at a
fresh proof that the Father has never left
Himself without witness among men, and that
even the most unlikely elements have gone to
prepare the world for Him who was, and still
is, to come.

C. H. W. JOHNS.

Queens' College, Cambridge,
6th April 1903.

ft.

Babel and Bible

PREFACE TO LECTl T KK I

I\ spite of a conscientious examination of the
rejoinders and critiques called forth by " Babel
und Bibel," with the exception of certain
improvements which for the most part aim
at greater clearness and the avoidance of
ambiguity. I have not found myself called
upon to alter the actual contents. The notes
appended to this new edition prove this as far
as the most important of my statements are
concerned.

Lecture i

What is the object of these labours in distant,
inhospitable, and dangerous lands? To what

Pig, 1. — From the German excavations at Babylon.

end this costly work of rummaging in mounds
many thousand years old, of digging deep down

Babel and Bible 3

into the earth in places where no gold or silver
is to he found ? Why this rivalry among
nations for the purpose of securing, each for
itself, these desolate hills and the more the
better — in which to excavate? And from
what source, on the other hand, is derived the

Fig. 2. —From the German excavations at Babylon.

self-sacrificing interest, ever on the increase.
that is shewn on both sides of the ocean, in
the excavations in Babylonia and Assyria?

To either question there is one answer,
which, if not exhaustive, nevertheless to a
great extent tells 11s the cause and aim : it is
the Bible. The names Nineveh and Babylon,
the stories of Belshazzar, and of the Wise .Men

4 Babel and Bible

who came from the East, have been surrounded,
from our childhood up, by a mysterious charm :
and however important the long lines of rulers
whom we awaken anew to life may be in
their bearings on history and civilization, they
would not arouse halt' the amount of interest,
were not Amraphel and Sennacherib and
Nebuchadnezzar, who are familiar to us from
our school-days, included among them. With
these recollections of our childhood, however,
is associated in riper years the struggle for a
conception of the world which shall satisfy
equally the understanding and the heart — a
struggle which in the present day occupies the
mind of every thinking man. And this leads
us hack again and again to the Bible, primarily
to questions concerning the origin and meaning
of the Old Testament, with which, however,
the New is. from a historical point of view,
inseparably linked. It is astonishing to what
an extent the Old Testament, that small
library of hooks of the most multifarious kind,
is being investigated in every direction at the

Babel and Bible 5

present day, by an almost inconceivable number
of Christian scholars in Germany, England,
and America — the three Bible-lands, as they
have not unjustly been called. The public still
continues to take but little notice of this quiet
intellectual work. But this at least is certain,
when once the sum-total of the new lessons
that have been learnt has broken out of the
study, and has come forth into life, into the
church and into the school, the life of men and
of peoples will be more deeply stirred, will be
led on to more important advances than by
the most noteworthy discoveries in the whole
domain of Natural Science. At the same
time, however, the conviction is becoming
more and more general that it is the results
of the excavations in Babylonia and Assyria
in particular that are destined to inaugurate
a new epoch as regards both the way in which
we must understand the Old Testament and
the estimate we must form of it, and that for
all future time Babel and the Bible will remain
closely connected.

6 Babel and Bible

The times have indeed changed! We had
David, Solomon, LOOO b.c, .Moses, uoo b.c,
and Abraham eight centuries earlier; and
even detailed information about all these men!
The thing seemed so unique, so supernatural,
that the stories from the early beginnings of
the world and of mankind were likewise
accepted as credible eveu great minds came
under the spell of the mystery surrounding the
first hook of Moses. Now that the Pyramids
have opened and the Assyrian palaces have
disclosed themselves to view, the people of
Israel with their writings appear one of the
youngest among their neighbours.

Until far into the last century the Old
Testament formed a world by itself: it spoke
of times to whose latest limits the age of
Classical Antiquity only just reaches, and
of peoples of whom there is no mention
or only a passing reference among Greek
and Roman writers. From about 550 B.C.
onwards, the Bible was the only source for
the history of the Nearer East, and. since

Babel and Bible 7

its range of vision spreads over the whole of the
great quadrilateral between the Mediterranean
and the Persian Gulf, from Ararat to Ethiopia,
it is full of problems the solution of which
would never perhaps have been successfully
achieved. Now, at a stroke, the walls that
have shut off the remoter portion of the Old
Testament scene of action fall, and a cool
quickening breeze from the East, accompanied
by a flood of light, breathes through and
illuminates the whole of the time-honoured
Hook — all the more intensely because Hebrew
antiquity from beginning to end is closely
linked with this same Babylonia and Assyria.

The American excavations in Nippur have
brought to light the business records of the
great commercial firm of Murashu & Sons, 1
which was established there in the time of
Artaxerxes (about 450 B.C.). Tn these records
we find the names of many Jewish exiles who
remained in Babylon — Nathanael, Haggai,
Benjamin. And in connection with the

1 Set- Note. |>. 93

8 Babel and Bible

city of Nippur we read also of a canal
Kabar; in which the canal Chebar "in
the land of the Chaldeans.'" famous <>n
account of Ezekiel's vision (Ezek. i. .'*) is
recovered. This Grand Canal for that is
the meaning of the name may even survive
to the present day.

As the Babylonian bricks nearly always
bear a stamp, mentioning, among other details,
the name of the city to which the building
in question belonged, Sir Henry Rawlinson,
as far back as 1849, succeeded in discovering
the long-sought city of Ur of the Chaldees,
in several passages attested as the home of
Abraham, i.e., the tribal ancestors of Israel
(.en. xi. 31, XV. 7) -at el-Mukayyar. the
mighty mound of ruins on the right-hand bank
of the lowest course of the Euphrates (fig. 3).
The statements in the cuneiform literature on
geographical matters are so clear, that though
the city of Carchemish, where Nebuchadnezzar
in no."} b.c. obtained his great victory over
Pharaoh Necho (Jer. xlvi. 2) was previously

Babel and Bible 9

sought, now in one place, now in another, on
the banks of the Euphrates, the English
Assyriologist George Smith, in March 1S7<'»,
rode direct from Aleppo down the stream
from Birejik, to the district where, according to
the cuneiform inscriptions, the old Hittite royal

Fig. 3. — The ruins of el-Mukayyar (Ur of the Chaldees).

city must have lain, and at once, with the
greatest certainty, identified the ruins of
Jerabis — greater than Nineveh, with walls and
palace-mounds — with Carchemish, an identi-
fication immediately afterwards confirmed
by the inscriptions in that peculiar Hittite
hieroglyphic script (fig. 4) which were found
scattered among the ruins,

Babel and Bible

And as is the case with a large number
of the places, so also many of the personages

named in the Bible now receive colour and
life. The hook of Isaiah (xx. 1) mentions, on

. 1. — Hittite hieroglyphs from Carchemish.

one occasion, an Assyrian kini>- named Sargon
who had sent his field-marshal against Ashdod.
When in ] s j.:j the French consul Emile Botta
began to dig at Khorsabad, the ruined mound
not far from Mosul, and thus at the advice of

Babel and Bible

i i

a German scholar inaugurated archaeological

researches in Mesopotamian soil, the very first
Assyrian palace to be discovered was that of
this Sargon, the conqueror of Samaria. Upon

Fig. 5. — Sargon II. and his field-marshal.

one of the magnificent alabaster reliefs with
which the w r alls of the palace chambers were
adorned, the very person of this mighty warrior
conversing with his field-marshal meets our
gaze (fig. 5). The Book of Kings (2 Kings

I 2

Babel and Bible

w iii. 1 t sqq.) relates that King Sennacherib, in
the south Palestinian city of Lachish, received
the tribute of King I [ezekiah of Jerusalem. A

relief from Sennacherib's palace in Nineveh

Fig, 6. — King Hammurabi Amraphe] .

shews us the Assyrian monarch, enthroned be-
fore his tent, Pacing a conquered city, and the
accompanying inscription states that "Senna-
cherib the king of the universe, king of Asshur,
seated himself on his throne and inspected the

Babel and Bible

spoil of Lachish." And Sennacherib's Baby-
lonian adversary, Merodach-baladan, in his

turn — who, according to the Bible (2 Kings
xx. 12), sent messengers of peace to Hezekiah
is shewn ns upon a fine diorite-relief now
at Berlin : before the king stands the gover-
nor of Babylon, to whom his royal master in

•V-.'

Ifebj -SI .*&*£*$ — v

Fig. 7. — Seal of Darius Hystaspis.

his graciousness has presented large estates.
Even the great king Hammurabi — Amraphel
(Gen. xiv.) — the contemporary of Abraham, is
now pictorially represented (e.g. fig. 6). Thus,
all the men who throughout three thousand
years made the history of the world, come
to life again ; even their seal-cylinders have
survived. Here we have the seal of King

Babel and Bible

Darius, the son of Hystaspis (fig. 7): the
king lion-hunting under the august protection
of Ahuramazda, with the inscription at the side
in three Languages: "I am Darius the great
king" a veritable treasure belonging to the
British .Museum. Here (fig. 8) the state-seal of
Sargani-sar-ali. or Sargon I., one of the oldest of

Fig. 8.— Seal of Sargon I.

the Babylonian rulers yet known, of the third,
probably even the fourth, millennium b.c.

This is the king who caused the legend to
be related of him that he knew not his father
for lie died before his birth and that
his widowed mother, as his father's brother
shewed no care for her, 1 brought him into the
world in great distress: ••in Azupiran on the
1 See Note, \>. 92.

Babel and Bible i 5

Euphrates she secretly gave birth to me, put
me in a little ark of reeds, closed the opening
with bitumen, laid me in the river, that bore
me down on its waves to Akki, the water-
carrier. In the benevolence of his heart he
took me in, brought me up as his child, made
me his gardener. Then Ishtar, the daughter of
the King of Heaven, conceived an affection
for me and raised me up to be king over men."
But even whole nations come to life again.
When we collect the various ethnical types L
from the Assyrian sculptures, and fix our eyes
in one case upon the representation of a
Judaean from Lachish (fig. 11), and in another
upon an Israelite of the time of Jehu (fig. 10),
it suggests itself as likely that the other
types also— e.g. the Elamite chieftain (9),
the Arab rider (13), and the Babylonian
merchant (12) — have been accurately observed
and reproduced. In particular, the Assyrians.
who but six decades ago seemed to have been
swallowed up, together with their history and

1 See Note, p. !).;.

Babel and Bible

9. Elamite.
12. Babj I

] 1. Judsean.

10. Israelite.
L3. AniK.

Babel and Bible 17

culture, in the stream of ages, are now known
to us through the excavations in Nineveh to
the minutest details, and many passages in
the prophetical hooks of the Old Testament
receive vivid local colour.

" Behold, they shall come with speed swiftly.
None shall be weary nor stumble among them :
none shall slumber nor sleep ; neither shall
the girdle of their loins he loosed, nor the
latchet of their shoes be broken : whose
arrows are sharp, and all their hows bent,
their horses' shoes shall be counted like Hint,
and their wheels like a whirlwind. Their
roaring shall be like a lion, and they shall lay
hold of the prey and shall carry it away safe,
and none shall deliver it."

Thus does the prophet Isaiah (v. 26 sqq.) in

eloquent language describe the Assyrian troops.

Now we see these Assyrian soldiers setting

out from the camp in the early morn (fig. 14).

and with battering-rams assaulting the enemy's

stronghold (fig. 15), whilst on the lower line

of the relief unhappy captives arc being con-

Babel and Bible

. 14. — Departure of Assyrian troops from the ramp.

I ; r>. r

"*f

m *£ <W

i~r

ii^ w. »»

Fig. 15. — Assault upon an Assyrian fortress with battering-rams,

Babel and Bible

ducted on the journey from which there

is no return. We see (fig. 16) the Assyrian
archers and spearmen hurling their missiles at
the hostile fortress, and, elsewhere, Assyrian
warriors stonning a hill which is defended by
the enemy's archers: they draw themselves
up to the branches of trees or climb up

r— r ~' » 1 - » «. ■*•* "* * " -** *' -

Fig. 16. —Assyrian a.rchers~and spearmen.

with the help of staffs, whilst others are
triumphantly carrying down to the valley the
severed heads of the enemy. Thanks to a
number of these war-pictures on the bronze
nates of Shalmaneser II., as well as on the
alabaster reliefs from the palaces of Sargon
and Sennacherib, the war-methods of this
the first military state in the world, down to

Rabcl and Bible

the details of arms and equipment and their
gradual improvement, arc made known to us.

Fig. 17.— Assyrian staff-officer ofSargon 11.

Here (fig. 17) is the representation of one of
Sargon's Assyrian staff-officers, whose heard is

. 18. — Pages in ceremonial procession.

dressed with a skill that lias not yet been
attained even by our officers of to-day. Here
are the pages of the royal household making

Babel and Bible

.HI

Fig. 19. — Pages bearing the royal chariot.

Fig. 20.— Pages bearing the royal
throne.

Fig. 21. — King Ashur-bani-pa] at the bunt.

-> ->

Babel and Bible

their ceremonial entrance (fig. IS), bearing the
royal chariot (fig. 19), or the royal throne
(fier. 20). Many beautiful relict's shew us
King Sardanapalus (Ashur-bani-pal) out hunt-
ing (fig. 21), especially when engaged in his
favourite sport, the hunting of lions, of which

^n^^H^Bl

l-'i<_ r . 22.— Ashur-bani-pal lion-hunting on horseback.

a number of remarkably tine specimens were

always kept ready tor the (lav of the hunt in
i . •

a park specially reserved for game.

When King Saul was unwilling to allow the
youthful David to set out to fight against
Goliath, David reminded him that many a
time whilst shepherding his father's Hock.

Babel and Bible

2 3

Fig. 23. — Ashur-bani-pal hunts the lions from a chariot.

Fig, 2 1.— Ashur-bani-pal fighting the lion on foot.

Babel and Bible

when a lion or bear carried off an animal, he
had gone out after it. had smitten it. and
wrested from it the prey ; and when the lion
had turned against him he had caught it by its

i i *

fv '

:T/\

WWriW

: •

:_.._ I \

Pigs, 25, 26. — Preparations for the royal table.

beard and killed it. This was precisely the
custom in Assyria. The reliefs, accordingly,
shew us King Ashur-bani-pal in combat with
a lion : and not only on horseback (fig. 22)
and in a chariot (fig. 23) : we also see the king

Babel and Bible

of Asshur fii>'litiiii»* at close quarters on foot
(fig. 24), courageously measuring his strength
with the king of the desert. We catch a
glimpse of the preparations for the royal table
(figs. 2.5, 26); we see servants carrying hares,

Fig. 27. — King and Queen in vine-encircled bower.

partridges, locusts attached to sticks, besides
an abundance of cakes and fruits <>i' all kinds,
and holding a small green branch in one hand
to keep off flies. Nay more, on a relief from
the harem (fig. 27) we are even permitted

Babel and Bible

to sec the king and queen refreshing them-
selves with choice wine in a vine-encircled
bower: the king reclining upon a lofty couch,
the queen, gorgeously robed, sitting opposite to

Fig. 28.— Wife of Ashur-bani-pal.

Iiim upon a high chair; eunuchs arc cooling
them both with fans, whilst, from a distance, the
music of stringed instruments Calls upon their
c;irs. It is the only extant representation of a
queen, and her profile, much better preserved

Babel and Bible

in former years, was rescued for posterity in
1807 by a drawing (fig. 28) made by a Prussian
lieutenant, afterwards Colonel Billerbeck. It is
quite possible that this consort of Ashur-bani-
pal was a princess of Aryan blood, and may be
imagined with fair hair.

I An

Fig. 29. — Procession of gods.

And much else in Assyrian antiquity that
may interest us is pietorially presented to our
gaze. The prophet Isaiah (xlv. 20, xlvi. 1)
mentions processions of gods 1 ; here (fig. 29)
we see a procession of the kind : the goddesses
in front, behind them the thunder-god armed
with hammer and a sheaf of thunderbolts,
whilst Assyrian soldiers have been ordered to

1 Sec Note. )). .'I.!.

Babel and Bible

cany the images of the gods. We see how the
heavy colossal hulls were moved from place
to place (fig. .'*()). and at the same time get
glimpses of every kind into the technical
accomplishments of the Assyrians. But above

Fig. 30. — The conveying of a colossal bull.

all we may revel again and again in the noble
style of their architecture, noble in its simplicity,
as shewn to us in the gate of Sargon's palace
(fig. 31), excavated by Botta, and we may
revd equally in the fine animal-representations,
full of the most striking realism, which those
" Dutch Masters " of antiquity have created, as,

Babel and Bible

for example, the idyl of the peacefully grazing
antelopes (fig. 32), or the dying lioness from

9u&.&jft.>&-Su-r

Fig. 31. — Gate of Sargon's palace.

Fig. 32. — Grazing antelopes.

Nineveh famed in the annals of art (fig. 33).

The excavations on Babylonian soil also open

3<d Babel and Bible

up to us iu exactly the same way the art and
culture of this the mother-country of Assyrian
civilization, taking us as far back as the fourth
millennium, that is to say. to times which the
boldest imagination could never have dreamed

Fig. 33. — The living lioness from Nineveh.

of reaching again. We penetrate into the age
of the Sumerians, that primaeval face, neither
[ndo-germanic nor Semitic, whose people were
the creators and founders of the great Baby-
lonian civilization, and to whom the number
sixty (not a hundred) represented the next
higher unit after the ten. The Sumerian chief-

Babel and Bible

priest, whose magnificently preserved head (Ho-.
34) is in the Berlin Museum, may certainly
be described as a noble representative of the
human race at the dawn of history.

Yet, however instructive and deserving of

Fig. 34. — Head of a high priest.

recognition all these features may be, they are
but details and, so to say, externals, such as
are easily surpassed in importance by the facts
now to be mentioned.

I am not thinking here of the circumstance,
of eminent value though it be, that the Baby-
lonian-Assyrian chronology, with its strictly
astronomical basis — the observation of eclipses

32 Babel and Bible

of the sun. etc. now allows us to arrange
chronologically and in a systematic manner the
events recorded in the- biblical books of the
Kings (a result for which we should be doubly
thankful, since Robertson Smith and Well-
hausen have proved that the Old Testament
chronology i s conformed to a system of sacred
numbers: 480 years from the end of the Exile
hack to the Founding of the Temple of
Solomon, and again 4<S() years [see 1 Kings
vi. 1] from the Founding of the Temple
to the Exodus of the Children of Israel
from Egypt). Even the far-reaching import-
ance which cuneiform research has had for
the increasingly better understanding of the
text of the Old Testament (thanks to the re-
markably elose relationship subsisting between
the Babylonian and Hebrew languages and
to the vast extent of the Babylonian litera-
ture) can here be illustrated by just one simple
example: "The Ford bless thee and keep
thee: The Ford make his face shine upon
thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Ford

Babel and Bible 33

lift up his countenance upon thee, and give
thee peace." How many times, times without
number, is this threefold blessing (Num. vi. 24
sqq.) spoken and heard ! Yet its meaning has
only come to he realized by us in all its pro-
fundity now that the Babylonian usage has
taught us that "to lift up his face, his eyes,
upon or to one' is a particularly favourite
expression used of the deity who "bestows
his pleasure, his love, upon a chosen man (or
place)." 1 Thesuhlinie blessing, accordingly, ask-
ing more and more as it proceeds, craves lor man
from God blessing and protection, friendliness
and grace, and finally, even God's love, closing
with the words, " Peace be with thee," that truly
beautiful Eastern greeting, of which Friedrich
Ruckert, inspired by a verse in the Koran, sings:

When ye enter any house

•■ Peace be with you " shall ye say :

'• Peace !)e yours " ye shall repeal

Ere ve turn your steps away.
Men have uttered many a prayer,
None lias breathed a word more fair

Than " Peace he here In-low .
1 See Note, |>. 94.

^4 Babel and Bible

Hut even the great help which Babylon
unexpectedly brings to the philological under-
standing of the Bible must, as regards import-
ance, be assigned a second place in view of the
considerations that follow.

One of the most notable results of the
archaeological researches on the Euphrates and
Tigris is the discovery that in the Babylonian
lowland, a district of about the size of Italy,
which nature had already made uncommonly
fruitful, but which human energy converted
into a hothouse of vegetation passing our con-
ception, there existed as early as about 2250
B.C. 1 a highly-developed constitution, together
with a state of culture that may well be com-
pared with that of our later Middle Ages.
After Hammurabi had succeeded in driving out
of the country the Elamites, the hereditary Iocs
of Babylonia, and had amalgamated the north
and south of the land into one united state,
with Babylon as the political and religious
centre, his first care was to enforce uniform
laws throughout the land. lie therefore pre-

1 See Note, p. 96.

Babel and Bible 35

pared a great code which defined the civil law
in all its branches. In this code, the relations
of master to slave and labourer, of merchant
to agent, of landed proprietor to tenant-farmer,
are strictly regulated. There is a law to the
effect that the agent who pays over money
to his principal for goods sold must receive a
receipt from the latter; abatement of rent is
provided for in the event of damage by storm
or Hood : fishing-rights for each village situated
on a canal are accurately defined, etc. Babylon
is the scat of the supreme court, to which all
difficult and contested lawsuits have to be re-
ferred for decision. Every able man is bound
to serve as a soldier, although Hammurabi
took precautions against a too excessive use of
conscription, by means of numerous decrees,
recognising the privileges of the old priestly
families, or exempting shepherds from military
service in the interests of cattle-breeding.

We read of writing in Babylon ; and the
extremely eursive nature of the writing points
to the widest application of it. In truth,

36 Babel and Bible

when we find, among the letters which have
survived from those ancient times in great
abundance, the Letter of a woman to her
husband on his travels, wherein, after telling
him that the little ones are well, she asks
advice on some trivial matter : or the missi\ <_• of
a son to his father, in which he informs him
that so-and-so has mortally offended him. that
lie would thrash the knave, but would like to
ask his father's advice first ; or another letter in
which a son urges his father to send at last
the Long-promised money, offering the insolent
inducement that then he will pray for his father
again - - all this points to a well-organised
system of communication by Letter and of
postal arrangements, and shews, also, to judge
by all the indications, that streets, bridges, and
canals, even beyond the frontiers of Babylon,
were in excellent condition.

Trade and commerce, cattle-breeding and
agriculture, were at their prime, and the
sciences, e.g. geometry, mathematics, and,
above all. astronomy, had reached a degree of

Babel and Bible

development which again and again moves
even the astronomers of to-day to admiration
and astonishment. Not Paris, at the outside
Rome, can compete with Babylon in respect
of the influence which it exercised upon the

I I'J. •>.!.

The Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar (restored .

world throughout two thousand years. The
Prophets of the Old Testament attest in terms
full of displeasure the overpowering grandeur
and overwhelming might of the Babylon of
Nebuchadnezzar (fig. 35). "A golden cup,"
exclaims Jeremiah (li. 7). "was Babylon in the

38 Babel and Bible

hand of Yahwe. which hath made the whole
earth drunken " ; and even down to the time
of the Apocalypse of John, words arc found
which quiver with the hateful memory of the
great Babel, the luxurious, gay city, the wealth-
abonnding centre of trade and art, the mother
of harlots and of every abomination upon earth.
And this focus of culture and science and
literature, the 'brain* of* the Nearer East, and
the aU-niling power, was the city of Babylon,
even at the close of the third millennium.

It was in the winter of 1887 that Egyptian
lellahin digging for antiquities at El-Amama,
the ruins of the royal city of Amenophis [V., be-
tween Thebes and Memphis, found there some
three hundred clay-tablets of all sizes. These
tablets are, as has since been shewn, the letters
of Babylonian, Assyrian, and Mesopotamian
kings to the Pharaohs Amenophis III. and IV..
and especially the written communications of
Egyptian governors from the great Canaanite
cities, such as Tyre. Sidon. Acco, Ascalon, to
the Egyptian court : and the Berlin Museums

Babel and Bible 39

arc fortunate enough to possess the only letters
from Jerusalem, written even before the immi-
gration of the Israelites into the promised land.
Like a mighty reflector, this discovery of clay-
tablets at Amarna has turned into a dazzling
light the deep darkness which lay over the
Mediterranean lands — Canaan in particular—
and over their politics and culture at about
1500-1400 B.c. And the fact alone that all
these chiefs of Canaan, and even of Cyprus,
avail themselves of the Babylonian writing and
language, and write on clay-tablets like the
Babylonians, that, therefore, the Babylonian
tongue was the official lan»'ua<>'e of diplomatic
intercourse from the Euphrates to the Nile-.
proves the all-ruling influence of the Baby-
lonian culture and literature from 2200 to
beyond 1400 B.C.

When, therefore, the twelve tribes of Israel
invaded Canaan, they came to a land which
was a domain completely pervaded by Baby-
lonian culture. 1 It is a small hut characteristic

1 See N<»te. p. <»7.

40 Babel and Bible

feature that, on the conquest and despoiling
of the first Canaanite city, Jericho, a Babylonish

mantle excited the greed of Achan (Josli. vii.
•Jl). Vet it was not only the commerce, hut
also the trade, law, custom, and science of
Babylon that set the fashion in the land.
Thus we can at once understand why, for
example, the coinage, the system of weights
and measures, the outward forms of the law
•• if a man does so and so, he shall so and so "
are precisely Babylonian, and just as the sacri-
ficial and priestly system of the Old Testament
is profoundly influenced by the Babylonian, so
it is significant that Israelite tradition itself no
longer affords any certain information respect-
ing the origin of the Sabbath (cf. Exod. xx.
11 with Deut. v. 15).

Hut since the Babylonians also had a
Sabbath day {Sabattu)? on which, for the pur-
pose of conciliating the gods, there was a
festival — that is to say. no work was to be
done — and since the seventh, fourteenth,

i See Note, |» 98,

Babel and Bible 41

twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of a month

are marked on a calendar of sacrifices and
festivals dug up in Babylonia as days on which
"the shepherd of the great nations" shall eat
no roast flesh, shall not change his dress, shall
not offer sacrifice, as days on which the king
shall not mount the chariot, or pronounce
judgment, the Magus shall not prophesy, even
the physician shall not lay his hand on the
sick, in short, as days which "arc not suitable
for any affair (business ?)," it is scarcely possible"
for us to doubt that we owe the blessings de-
creed in the Sabbath or Sunday day of rest in
the last resort to that ancient and civilized race
on the Euphrates and Tigris.

Nay, even more! The Berlin Museums
have in their keeping a particularly valuable
treasure. It consists of a clay-tablet with
a Babylonian legend which tells how it
happened that the first man came to for-
feit immortality. The place where this
tablet was found viz., El-Amarna and the
many dots in red Egyptian ink found in

4-2

Babel and Bible

different places all oxer the tablet (shewing
the pains the Egyptian scholar had taken to
make the foreign text intelligible), give ocular
proof how eagerly the works of Babylonian
literature were studied even at that ancient
date in lands as far away as that of the
Pharaohs. Is it surprising, then, that the same
thing should have happened in Palestine also
in earlier as well as in later days, and that now.
all at once, a series of Biblical narratives conic
to us in their original form from the Baby-
lonian treasure-mounds, rising, as it were, out
of the night into the light of day?

The Babylonians divided their history into
two great periods: the one before, the other
after the Flood. Babylon was in quite a
peculiar sense the land of deludes. The
alluvia] lowlands along the course of all great
rivers discharging into the sea are. of course,
exposed to terrible Hoods of a special kind
cyclones and tornadoes accompanied by earth-
quakes and tremendous downpours of rain.

As late as the year 1N7<>. a tornado of this

Babel and Bible 43

kind coming from the Hay of Bengal, accom-
panied by fearful thunder and hghtning, and
blowing with such force that ships at a distance
of .'MO kilometres (nearly !!)() miles) were
dismasted, approached the mouths of the
Ganges, and the high cyclonic waves, uniting
with the then ebbing tide, formed one gigantic
tidal wave, with the result that within a short
while an area of 141 geographical square miles
was covered with water to a depth of 45 feet,
and 215,000 men met their death by drowning.
The storm raged in this way until the Hood
spent itself on the higher ground. When we
reflect upon this, we can estimate what a fright-
ful catastrophe a cyclone of the kind must have
meant when it came upon the lowlands of
Babylon in those primaeval days. It is the merit
of the celebrated Viennese geologist Eduard
Suess to have shewn that there is an ac-
curate description of such a cyclone, line for
line, in the Babylonian Deluge-story written
upon a tablet (see fig. 36) from the- Library of
Sardanapalus at Nineveh, of which, however,

Babel and Bible

a written account had existed as early as 2000
B.C. The sea plays the chief part in the story.
and the ship of Xisuthros, the Babylonian Noah,

$B5P&?&&

•TV

Fig. 36.— Tablet with the Deluge-story.

is accordingly cast upon a spur of the moun-
tain-range of Armenia and Media: in other
respects, however, it is the Deluge-story so
well known to us all. Xisuthros receives a
command from the god of the ocean depths

Babel and Bible 45

to build a ship of a specified size, to piteli
it thoroughly, and to embark upon it his
family and all living seed; the party go on
board ship, its doors are closed, it is thrust out
into the all-destroying billows until at length
it strands upon a mountain called Nizir. Then
follows the famous passage : " On the seventh
day I brought out a dove and released it ; the
dove Hew hither and thither, but as there was
no resting-place it returned again." We then
read further how that the swallow was released
and returned again, until, finally, the raven,
finding that the waters had subsided, returned
not again to the ship, and how that Xisuthros
leaves the vessel, and offers upon the top of
the mountain a sacrifice, the sweet savour
whereof is smelt by the gods, and so on. The
whole story, precisely as it was written down,
travelled to Canaan. 1 Hut owing to the
new and entirely different local conditions, it
was forgotten that the sea was the chief factor,
and so we find in the Bible two accounts of

1 See Note, p. 102.

46 Babel and Bible

the Deluge, which arc not only scientifically
impossible', but, ftirthermore, mutually contra-
dictory the one assigning to it a duration of

365 days, the other of [40 + (3x7)]= <il days.
Science is indebted to Jean Astruc, that
strictly orthodox Catholic physician of Louis
XI \\. for recognising that two fundamentally
different accounts of a deluge have been
worked up into a single story in the Bible.
In the year 1753, Astruc. as Goethe expresses
it. first "applied the knife and probe to the
Pentateuch." and thereby became the founder
of the criticism of the Pentateuch that is to
say, of the study which perceives more and
more clearly the very varied written sources
from which the five Hooks of Moses have been
compiled. These arc facts that, as far as
science is concerned, stand firm and remain un-
shaken, however tightly people on either side
of the ocean may continue to close their eyes to
them. When we reflect that in time past the
Copemican system was offensive even to such
men of genius as Luther and .Melanchthon.

Babel and Bible 47

we must be quite prepared to find only a tardy
recognition of the results of Pentateuehal
criticism ; but the course of time will surely
bring with it light.

The ten Babylonian antediluvian kings also
have been admitted into the Bible, and figure
as the ten antediluvian patriarchs, with various
points of agreement as to details.

Besides the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh,
the eleventh tablet of which gives the Deluge-
story, we also possess another beautiful
Babylonian poem: the creation-epic, 1 written
upon seven tablets. At the very beginning
of all things, according to this story, a dark,
chaotic, primaeval water,- called Tiamat,
existed in a state of agitation and tumult.
But as soon as the gods made preparations for
the formation of an ordered universe, Tiamat,
generally represented as a dragon, but also as
a seven-headed serpent, arose in bitter enmity,
gave birth to monsters of all kinds— -in parti-
cular, gigantic serpents filled with venom — and
with these as her allies, prepared, roaring and

1 See Note, p. 104.

4^ Babel and Bible

snorting, to do battle with the sods. All

the gods tremble with fear when they per-
ceive their terrible adversary: only the god
Marduk. the god of light, the god of the early
morning and of spring, volunteered to do battle
on condition that the first place among the
gods be conceded to him. A splendid scene
follows. The god Marduk fastens a mighty
net to the east and south, north and west,
in order that nothing of Tiamat may escape;
then elad in gleaming armour, and in
majestic splendour, he mounts his chariot
drawn by four fiery steeds, the gods around
gazing with admiration. Straight he drives
to meet the dragon and her army, and utters
the call to single combat. Then Tiamat
uttered wild and piercing cries until her
ground quaked asunder from the bottom.
She opened her jaws to their utmost, but
before she could close her lips the god Marduk
bade the evil wind enter within her, then seiz-
ing the javelin, he cut her heart in pieces.
cast down her body and stood upon it, whilst

Babel and Bible 49

her myrmidons were placed in durance vile.
Then Marduk clave Tiamat clean asunder
like a fish; out of the one half he formed
heaven, out of the oilier, earth, at the same
time dividing the upper waters from the lower
hv means of the firmament : he decked the
heavens with moon, sun and stars, the earth
with plants and animals, until at length the
first human pair, made of clay mingled with
divine blood, went forth fashioned by the hand
of the creator.

As Marduk was the tutelary deity of the
city of Babel, we can readily believe that this
narrative in particular became very widely
diffused in Canaan. Indeed, the Old Testa-
ment poets and prophets even went so far as
to transfer Marduk's heroic act directly to
Yahwr. and thenceforth extolled him as being
the one who iii the beginning of time broke
in pieces the heads of the sea-monster [liviniln'ui.
Vs. lxxiv. 13 sq. ; cf. lxxxix. KM. as the one
through whom the helpers of the dragon
[rdhdb) were overthrown. Such passages as

50 Babel and Bible

Is. li. <) : "Awake, awake, put on strength,
() arm of Yahwe ! awake, as in the ancient
days, the generations of old. Art thou not
it that hewed the dragon in pieces, that pierced
the monster (tanrdn)V or Job xwi. 12:
" By his strength he smote the sea. and by
his wisdom he dashed in pieces the dragon,
read like a commentary on that small repre-
sentation of Mardnk which was found by our
expedition. The god is shewn to us clad
in majestic glory, with mighty arm and large
eye and ear, symbolic of his sagacity, and at
his feet is the vanquished dragon of the
primaeval ocean (fig. .*J7). The priestly scholar
who composed Gen. chap. i. endeavoured, of
course, to remove all possible mythological
features of this creation-story. 1 Hut the dark,
watery chaos is presupposed, and that, too,
with the name Tchom (i.e. Tiamat), and is
first divided from the light, after which the
heavens and the earth emerge. The heavens
are furnished with sun. moon, and stars, the

1 See N'ntc p. [04,

Babel and Bible

5 T

earth, clad with vegetation, is supplied with
animals, and finally the first human pair come
forth fashioned by the hand of God; and this
being so, the very close connection that exists

and the Babylonian

Fig. 87.— The god Mar.luk

between the Biblical
creation stories is as clear and iUuminating
as are and always will he futile all attempts
to bring our Biblical story of the creation into

Babel and Bible

conformity with the results of Natural Science. 1
It is interesting to note that there is still an
echo of this contest between Marduk and
Tiamat in the Apocalypse of John, where we
read of* a conflict between the Archangel
Michael and the "Beast of the Abyss, the

I ig. 38. — The conflict with tin- Dragon.

Old Serpent, which is the Devil and Satan."

The whole conception, also present in the

story of the knight St. George and his conflict

with the dragon, a story brought hack by the

Crusaders, is manifestly Babylonian. For tine

reliefs (fig. 38), older by many centuries than

1 See \'<>(c. p. 109.

Babel and Bible 53

the Apocalypse or the first chapter of Genesis,
are found on the walls of the Assyrian palaces.
representing the conflict between the power of
Lighl and tlu- power of darkness, which is
resumed with each new day. with every spring
as it begins anew.

To recognise these connecting links is, how-
ever, of still greater importance.

The command not to d<> to ones neighbour
what one does not wish to have done to ones
self is indelibly stamped upon every human
heart. " Thou shalt not shed thy neighbour's
blood, thou shalt not approach thy neighbour's
wife, thou shalt not seize upon thy neighbour's
garment these requirements of fundamental
importance for the self-preservation of human
society are found, in the ease of the Baby-
lonians, in precisely the same connection as
the fifth, sixth, and seventh commandments of
the Old Testament. Hut man is also a being
destined to live a social life, and on this account
the social requirements readiness to help, com-
passion, love — constitute an equally inalienable

54 Babel and Bible

heritage of human nature. When, therefore,
the Babylonian Magus, having been called in to
see a patient, seeks to know what sins have
thrown him thus upon the siek bed. he does
not stop short at such gross sins of commission
as murder or theft, but asks. " Have you failed
to clothe a naked person, or to cause a prisoner
to see the light ? " The Babylonians laid stress
even upon those postulates of human ethics
which stand on a higher level; to speak the
truth, to keep one's promise, seemed to them as
sacred a duty as to say * Yea ' with the mouth
and 'Nay' in the heart was. in their view, a
punishable offence. It is not strange, therefore,
that to the Babylonians, as to the Hebrews, trans-
gressions against these commands and prohibi-
tions present themselves in the character of sins ;
the Babylonians also felt themselves to be in
every respect entirely dependent upon the gods.
It is even more noteworthy that they, too,
regarded all human suffering, illness in par-
ticular, and finally death, as a punishment for

1 See Note, j>. 1 1 ■'.

Babel and Bible 55

sins. In Babel, as in the Bible, the sense of
sin is the dominating force everywhere. I Inder
these circumstances we can understand that
Babylonian thinkers pondered over the prob-
lem: How it could have been possible for
man. who had conic forth into the world as
the work of God's hand, and had been made
alter God's own likeness, to become the victim
of sin and death. The Bible contains that
beautiful and profound story of the corruption
of the woman by the serpent- again the
serpent ? There is certainly quite a Baby-
lonian ring about it ! Was it perhaps that
serpent, the earliest enemy of the gods,
seeking to revenge itself upon the gods of
light by alienating from them their noblest
creation? Of was it that serpent-god, of
whom in one place it is said "he destroyed
the abode of life"? The problem as to the
origin ol* the Biblical story of the Fall is second
to none in significance, in its bearings on the
history of religion, and abo\ e all for New Testa-
ment theology, which, as is well known, sets

Babel and Bible

off against the first Adam, through whom sin
and death came into the world, the second
Adam. Perhaps we may be permitted to lift
the veil a little. May we point to an old
Babylonian cylinder-seal (fig. :i\))'. Here, in
the middle, is the tree with hanging fruit ; on
the right the man. to be recognised by the
horns, the symbol of strength, on the left the

Fig. 39.— Balrylnnian representation of the Fall.

woman : both reaching out their hands to the
fruit, and behind the woman the serpent.
Should there not be a connection between this
old Babylonian representation and the Biblical

story of the Fall '. l

Man dies, but while his body is laid to rest
in the grave, his soul separates from it and
descends to the "land without return," to

1 See Note, p. I l i-.

Babel and Bible 57

Sheol, I lades, the place, full of (lust and gloom,
where the Shades Mutter about like birds, lead-
ing a dull and joyless existence: doors and
bars are covered with dust, and everything in
which the heart of man had once rejoiced has
become dust and mould. With such a com-
fortless outlook we can easily understand that
to the Hebrews, as to the Babylonians, length
of days in this lite seemed to be the highest of
blessings. And so Marduk's procession street,
unearthed by the German expedition in Baby-
lon, is paved with large slabs of stone, on each
of which is inscribed a prayer of Nebuchad-
nezzar's, concluding with the words: "O Lord
Marduk, grant long lite!" Hut this is remark-
able: the Babylonian conception of the under-
world is one degree, at any rate, more cheerful
than that of the Old Testament. Upon the
twelfth tablet of the Gilgamesh epic, which, so
far. has only come down to us in fragments,
the Babylonian under-world is described with
the greatest precision. Here we read of a place
within the confines of the under-world, evi-

Babel and Bible

dently reserved for those who are pious in a
special degree, "in which they (the pious) rest
on couches and drink clear water."" Many
Babylonian coffins have been found in Warka.
Nippur, and Babel. Hut the Department of
the Berlin Museums for Antiquities of the
Nearer East has recently acquired a small clay

Fig. 40. — Clay cone from a Babylonian coffin.

cone ( H*_>-. 40). which is obviously derived from
a coffin of the kind, and whose inscription
entreats, in touching terms, that whosoever
shall rind this coffin may leave it in its place
and do it no injury, and the little text con-
cludes with words of blessing for whosoever
should act thus kindly: "may his name con-
tinue to be blessed in the world above; in the

Babel and Bible 59

world below may his departed spirit drink

clear water." In Sheol, therefore, there was
a place for those who were perfectly pious.
where they recline upon couches and drink
clear water. Consequently, is it not probable
that the rest of Sheol would be strictly
reserved lor the not-pious, and as it was not
merely dusty but even waterless, or a place
that supplied, at the best, "turbid water"
would it not. at all events, be a place of
thirst '. In the Hook of Job. which betrays
a close acquaintance with Babylonian views,
we find (xxiv. IS sq.) the contrast between
a hot. waterless desert, destined for the wicked,
and a garden, with clear, fresh water, for the
pious. 1 In the New Testament, too. where
this conception is mingled, in a curious
manner, with the last verse of the Book of
Isaiah, we actually read of a fiery hell, in
which the rich man pants lor water, and of a
garden (Paradise) with plenty of clear, fresh
water for Lazarus. 2 And how much has since
1 Sec Note, ]). 1 is. See Not.'. |). 1 1 s.

60 Babel and Bible

been made of this hell and this Paradise by

•

painters and poets, by the fathers of the
church and priests, and finally by the prophet
Mohammed, is sufficiently well known. Mark
yonder poor Moslem who has been left be-
hind by the caravan, weak and helpless in the
desert, because he is no longer equal to the
fatigues of the journey. A small cupful of
water is at his side, he is digging with his
own hand a shallow grave in the desert-sand,
resignedly awaiting death. His eyes brighten,
for but a little longer and the angels will
come forth from the wide-opened gates of
Paradise to greet him with the words:
" Selam alaika, thou hast been pious, therefore
enter now tor ever into the Garden which
Allah has assigned to those who are his."
The garden is equal in extent to the heaven
and the earth. Gardens decked with dense
foliage, abounding in sheltered spots, and
richly supplied with low-hanging fruits, are
intersected on every side by brooks and
springs, and bowers cooled by the breeze rise

Babel and Bible 61

up on the banks of the rivers of Paradise.

The lushv of Paradise is reflected in the faces
of the blessed, beaming with joy and happiness.
They wear green raiment of the finest silk and
brocade. Their arms are adorned with gold
and silver bracelets. They recline on couches
provided with thick mattresses and soft
cushions, and at their feet are soft rugs. Thus
reclining face to face, they sit at luxuriously
furnished tables, that afford whatsoever they
desire. A well-supplied goblet is passed round,
and youths endowed with immortality, Looking
like strewn pearls, make the circle with silver
tankards and glass mugs tilled with Main, the
finest, clearest water, redolent of camphor
and ginger, from the well of Tasnim, from
which the archangels drink. And this water
is minified with the choicest of old wines.
whereof they may drink as much as they will,
since it makes not drunken and leaves no
headache. Then, in addition to this, there
are the Houris. Damsels with a skin as

delicate as the ostrich egg. with heaving

62 Babel and Bible

bosoms, and with eves like pearls hidden in
the shell, eves like the gazelle's, full of modest
yet heart-ensnaring glances. Seventy-two of
these Houris may each of the blessed ones
seleet in addition to the wives which he lias
had on earth, provided he desires to retain
them (and the good man will always have
good desires). All hatred and jealousy has
vanished from the breast of the blessed : no
gossip, no falseness is to be found in Paradise:
" Selam, selam i% rings out everywhere, and all
speech dies away with the words: el-hamdu
lilldhi rabbi-l- ( alamin, "praise be to God, the
Lord of all created things." Such is the picture
which is finally developed out of the simple
Babylonian idea of the clear water which is
enjoyed in Sheol by those who are perfectly
pious. And countless millions of people at the
present day are still dominated by these ideas of
the torments of hell ' and the bliss of Paradise.
As is well known, the idea that the deity
employs messengers, angels — of whom the

1 Sec Note, j). 1 1 ft.

Babel and Bible 63

Egyptians are ignorant is essentially Baby-
lonian; and the conception of Cherubim and
Seraphim, and of guardian angels attending
upon man. is also to be traced hack to Baby-
lonia. A Babylonian ruler required an army
of messengers to carry his commands into
every land ; so. too. the gods must have a
legion of messengers or angels, always ready
to do them service: messengers with the
intelligence of men, and therefore of human
form, yet withal provided with wings, to allow
them to convey the commands of* the deity
through the air to the inhabitants of the
earth. 1 These angel forms are likewise endowed
with the piercing eye and the swift wings
of the eagle; whilst those, moreover, whose
principal duty was to guard the approach to
the deity, were credited with having the nn-
conquerable strength of the bull, or the fear-
inspiring majesty of the lion, so that the
angels of Babylonia and Assyria, like those in
Ezekiel's vision, are very often represented as
1 See Note, |>. 120,

Babel and Bible

of* hybrid form — as. for example, the winged
bull-shaped Cherubim, with the contempla-
tive face of a man (ri^ - . 41). Hut we also
meet with other representations of angels,

such as that from the palace of Ashurnazirpal

—^ —?

■■»■

Fig. 42. — Angel.

(ri«>-. 42), which has the closest possible re-
semblance to our conception of angels. We

shall always keep a warm place in our
hearts for these noble and radiant figures
which art has made so dear and so familiar
to us. Hut demons and devils. 1 whether they

1 Sec- Note, p. 121,

Babel and Bible

6 5

hover before us as the enemies of man or as
the earliest foes of God, should be banished
for ever, once and for all. since we do not
profess the dualism of ancient Persia. "lie
that maketh the light and createth darkness,

Combat between two demons. Fig. 11. A devil.

that maketh welfare and createth misfortune,

I. Yahwe, am he that doeth all these things"

so does the greatest of the prophets of the

Old Testament rightly teach (is. xlv. 7).

Let demons like those shewn here (fig. W> |

the picture is not without interest for the

history of duelling— or distorted (inures like

66 Babel and Bible

the one in fig. 44, sink hack for ever and
for aye into the darkness of the* Babylonian
mounds out of which they arose.

And now to conclude. In the course of his
excavations at Khorsabad, Victor Place dis-
covered, among other things, the warehouses
belonging to Sargon's palace: in one store-
room was earthenware of every size and shape,
in another, iron utensils. Here, in the neatest
order, lay Large supplies of chains, nails, pegs,
pickaxes, and mattocks, and the iron was so
excellently worked, and so well preserved, that
when struck it sounded like a hell as a matter
of tact, some of these articles, though five-and-
twenty centuries old. could at once he made
use of again hv the Arab labourers.

That such productions of ancient Assyria
should thus intrude themselves into our own
time 1 in this impressive way strikes ns. of
course, as strange, and yet exactly the same
has happened in the intellectual world. When
we divide the Zodiac into twelve signs and
1 See Note, p. L22.

Babel and Bible 67

style them the Ram, Bull, Twins, etc., when
we divide the circle into .'}<>() degrees, the hour
into sixty minutes, and the minute into sixty
seconds, in all this the Suincrian-Babvlonian
culture is still living and operating even at the
present day.

I may perhaps, then, have succeeded in
shewing that many a Babylonian feature
has attached itself even to our religious ideas
through the medium of the Bible. When we
have removed those conceptions, which, though
derived, it is true, from highly-gifted peoples,
are nevertheless purely human, and when we
have treed our minds of firmly-rooted prejudice
of every kind, religion itself, as extolled by the
prophets and poets of the Old Testament, and
as taught in its most sublime sense by Jesus,
as also the religious feeling of our own hearts,
is so little affected, that it may rather be said
to emerge- from the cleansing process in a truer
and more sympathetic form. And at this point
let me be allowed to add one last word on a sub-
ject which makes the Bible of such importance

68 Babel and Bible

in the history of the world — its Monotheism.
Here. too. Babel has quite recently opened up
a new and unexpected prospect.

It is curious, but no one knows definitely
what our word 'God' (G-ott) originally means.
Philologists hesitate between " awe-inspiring "
and " that which exercises a spell."' The word
which the Semites, on the other hand, coined
!*o]- God is clear. Hut it is more than this:
it comprehends the idea of the deity in so full
an extent, that by this one word alone is
shattered the fable which tells us that "the
Semites were at all times astonishingly lack-
ing in religious instinct." and also the popular
modern view which would see, both in the
Yahwe-reliinon and in our Christian belief in
God, something evolved out of such fetichism
and animism as is characteristic of the South
Sea cannibals or the Patagonians.

There is a beautiful passage in the Koran
(vi. 7~) sqq.), so beautiful that Goethe wished to
sec it treated dramatically. In it Mohammed
imagines himself in Abraham's place and traces
the probable workings of the patriarch's mind

Babel and Bible 69

when arriving at the idea of Monotheism. I Le

says: •• When night had fallen and it was dark.
Abraham went out into the darkness, and
behold a star shone above him, then he cried
joyfully, 'That is my Lord.' Hut when the
star began to pale, he said. ' I like not them
that become without lustre.' Then, when he
saw the moon arise, shedding its light oxer the
firmament, he cried overjoyed, 'That is my
Lord." Hut when the moon waned, he said.
• .Mas. I needs must go astray.' Then in
the morning, when the sun rose shining in
splendour, he cried. 'This is my Lord, for he
is indeed great!' Hut when the sun set. he
said. •() my people, I have nought to do with
your worship of many gods, I turn my Pace to
him who made heaven and earth."

The old Semitic word (if it may be- called a
word) for God, well known to us all from the
words Eli, Eli, Ilium azabtani ("My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me ? "), is El, 1 and
means the Goal the Being to whom as to a
goal the eyes of man looking heavenwards are

1 See Note. |». I 25.

70 Babel and Bible

turned, "on whom hangs the graze of even
man. to whom man looks out from alar" (.Job
xxxvi. 25), that Being towards whom man
stretches forth his hands, after whom the
human heart yearns away from the mutability
and imperfection of earthly life this Being
the nomad Semitic tribes called El or God.
And since the Divine Essence was viewed by
them as a unity. 1 we find among the old North
Semitic'- tribes who settled in Babylonia about
2500 B.C., such persona] names as "God has
given," "God with me," "belonging to God,"
"God! turn again," "God is God," "if God
be not my God," etc. But, further, through
the kindness of the Head of the Department
of Assyrian and Egyptian antiquities at the
British Museum, I am able to give a repre-
sentation of three small clay-tablets (figs.
[.') 47). What is there to be seen on these
tablets ? I shall be asked. Fragile, broken clay
upon which arc scratched characters scarcely
legible! That is true, no doubt, yet they are
precious for this reason : they can be dated

1 See Note., p. 138, - See Note, p. 123.

Babel and Bible

with certainty, they belong t<> the age of
Hammurabi, one in particular to the reign of

his father Sin-mubalit. Hut they arc still
more precious for another reason : they con-
tain three names which, from the point of view

•>•>»

!**5 -

Figs. 15 17. — Three clay-tablets with the name of Yahwe.

of the history of religion, are of the most far-
reaching importance : —

: ;--<?-«+

la- a- ve- ilu

m\ q- «+

la- tv- ilu

m\ m- ^ «-f

fa- u- ui/i- i fu

The names are Yahwe is God. Therefore
Yahwe, 1 the Existing, the Enduring one (we

1 See Note, p. i

72 Babel and Bible

have reasons for saving that the name may
mean this), the one devoid of all change, not
like us men. who to-morrow are but a thing of
yesterday, but one who, above the starry vault

• • •

which shines with everlasting regularity, lives

and works from generation to generation this
• Yahwe' was the spiritual possession of those
same nomad tribes out of which after a thou-
sand years the children of Israel were to emerge.
The religion of the immigrant Semites in
Babylonia quickly succumbed ' before the poly-
theism which for centuries had been current
among the older, and oldest, dwellers in the
land — a polytheism, however, from which, as
far as its conception of the gods is concerned,
our sympathy cannot altogether be withheld.
For the gods of the Babylonians are living,
omniscient, and omnipresent beings who hear
the prayers of men. and, though they be angry
with them for their sins, are yet ever ready to
be conciliated and to take compassion. The
representations, too. which arc given of the

1 Sic Note. |). 1 l'J.

Babel and Bible

deities in Babylonian art, as. for instance, that
of the Sun-god of Sippar, sitting enthroned in
his Holy of Holies (fig. 48; cf. also fig. 29),
are far removed from all that is unlovely,
ignoble, and grotesque.

The prophel Ezekiel (chap, i.i beholds God

Fi,u r . 18. — Tlic Son-god of Sippar.

driving in his living chariot formed of four
winered beings, with the lace of a man, a lion,
an OX, and an eagle, and resting on the heads
of the Cherubim (10) he sees a crystal surface
(firmament), and upon this a throne as of
sapphire, whereon (i<>d sits in human form,

74-

Babel and Bible

enveloped in a wondrous blaze of light. Now.
;i very old Babylonian cylinder seal (fii*. 49)
shows ns a strikingly similar view of God :
upon a wonderful ship, whose fore and aft
parts taper off in the form of a sitting human

Fig. 19. — Cylinder-seal recalling Ezekiel's vision.

figure, two Cherubim are placed hack to hack,
hut with the lace which is oi* human form
turned towards us. Their position suggests
that there arc two others on the other side.
On their backs rests a surface, and upon

Babel and Bible 75

this is set a throne, whereon sits the deity,
bearded and elad in a Long mantle, with tiara
upon his head, in the right hand, as it would
seem, a sceptre and a ring. Behind the throne
there stands an attendant of the god, at his
beck and call, to be compared with "the man
clothed in linen" (Ezek. i.\. .'*. \. '2). who. in like
manner, executes the commands of Yahwe.
In spite of all this, and notwithstanding that
tree and enlightened minds taught openly that
Nergal and Nebo, Moon-god and Sun-god, the
Thunder-god Ramman, and all other gods
were one in Marduk, the god of light, 1 poly-
theism -gross polytheism — continued through-
out three thousand years to he the Babylonian
State religion, a solemn warning and example
of the indolence of men and of peoples in
religious matters, and of the immense power of
an organised priesthood firmly founded upon it.
Even the Yahwe-faith. by which, as under
a banner. Moses hound together in unit) the
twelve nomad tribes of Israel, was. and con-

1 See Note, |>. I I '.

76 Babel and Bible

tinned to be, burdened with all kinds of human
limitations: with those naive anthropomorphic
and anthropopathic views of the deity which
are peculiar to the youth of the human race :
with a heathen sacrificial cultus : with external
forms of law. which did not prevent the
people of pre-exilic times from continuous
backsliding to the Baal and Astarte worship of
the indigenous Canaanites, so that they even
offered their sons and daughters as sacrifices to
Baal : and, above all, with Israelite eocclusiveness.
Nor was that burden lifted until the prophets
with admonitions — such as that of Joel, to
rend the hearts and not the garments, — and
the psalmists with utterances — such as. "The
offerings that are pleasing to God are a con-
trite spirit and a broken heart" (Ps. li. 17)
urged sincerity in religion : until, with the
preaching of Jesus, exhorting men to pray to
God, the Father of us all. in spirit and in
truth, a new era, that of the Xew Testament,
dawned upon the world.

7f * r '" ,:

Babel and Bible

"Babel and the Bible." What has been
said represents but to a small extent the
meaning of the excavations in Babylonia
and Assyria for the history and progress of
humanity. May it help to enforce recognition

50. — The house of the German Expedition in Babylon.

<>f the fact that it \\;is high time thai Germany
too should pitch her tent on the palm-crowned
hanks of the river of Paradise! Fig. 50 repre-
sents the dwelling of the Expedition scut
out bv the German Oriental Society. Out

78 Babel and Bible

yonder on the ruins of Babylon, it is working
ceaselessly, from morning till night, in heal
and cold, for Germany's honour, and for
Germany's learning.

We, too, "confess ourselves to be of the
race which is struggling out of darkness into
light." Sustained, like the archaeological
undertakings of the other nations, by the
increasing interest of our people, and by the
energetic support of our Government, ever
animated anew by a feeling of gratitude
for the gracious persona] patronage which
His .Majesty the King and Emperor has
been pleased to grant to it. and for the bene-
volent interest he has unceasingly taken in its
efforts, the German Oriental Society, which
was the last to appear on the field (only three
years ago), will, assuredly, secure a place of
honour under that sun which rises yonder in
the East out of those mysterious hills.

Notes

LECTURE I

The Lecture published in the preceding pages
was delivered for the German Oriental Society
on the 13th of January 1 ( .K)'J. in the Academy
of Music at Berlin, in the presence of His
.Majesty the King and Emperor, and. at the
mosl gracious wish of the Emperor, was
repealed on the 1st of February in the Royal
Palace a1 Berlin.

The meaning of the title has. will) few
exceptions, been quite correctly understood:
" Babel as the interpreter and illustrator of the
Bible." So the Schlesische Zeitung for 24th
January 1902: "Babel and Bible this was
the short but comprehensive heading, signi-
fying thai the speaker intended to dis-
cuss the results of the excavations in Baby-

8o Babel and Bible

Ionia and Assyria in their bearing on the
Bible."

Out of the multitude of rejoinders and more
detailed reviews that have been called forth
by " Babel and Bible "'--in so far as they have
come to my knowledge since my return from
Babylonia, and have proved to be of interest,
scientifically or otherwise — attention may be
specially called to the following. My own
notes, which I have added, are only meant to
serve a passing purpose-. Not until the lec-
tures on •• Babel and the Bible * have been
continued and concluded will the time be ripe
for a complete critical review of the replies
they have called forth.

J. Barth, Babel mid israelitisches Tteligions-
wesen. A Lecture. Berlin, 1902 ; 36 pp.

Prof. Dr. Karl Budde, Das Alte Testament
mid die Ausgrabungen. Giessen, 1903.

(A Lecture-, delivered May 29, 1902, at

Notes 8 1

the Theological Conference ;it Giessen) ;

:v.) pages, of which, however, only pp.

l 10 concern " Babel und Bibel."
The following passage in Budde's lecture
may be fixed upon here, on account of its
bearings (p. 6 sq.) : "At all events, the calm
decisiveness with which he emphasises certain
truths, which have Long ago been accepted as
everyday truths, but which are often still
condemned in the leading ecclesiastical circles
as dreadful heresies, is deserving of our
gratitude. For example, the compilation of
the Pentateuch from a scries of 'very different
sources.' the dependence upon Babylonian
myths of large portions of the primaeval
history as given in the Bible— the creation, the
Hood, the Sethite genealogy the futility of
all attempts to bring the biblical account of
the creation into harmony with the results of
Natural Science."

Dr. Johannes Doller, Imperial and Royal

Court Chaplain and Director of Studies

82 Babel and Bible

at the Frintaneum, Vienna, Bibel und
Babel oder Babel und Bibel? Eine
Entgegnung auf Prof. F. DelitzscK
" Babel und Bibel" Paderborn, 1903.

Prof. Dr. Hommel, Die altorientalischen

Denkmaler mid das Alte Testament.

Eine Erwiderung auf Prof. Fr. De-

UtzscKs " Babel und Bibel." Berlin. 1902 :

38 pp.
" Decidedly the simplest and most con-
venient course to take now would be to hold
oneself aloof from the whole theory of separate
sources. This, however, will not do on
account of the various duplicate accounts
which, however much one might wish it. are
not to be explained away, and which we can
observe with special clearness, particularly in
the biblical accounts of the creation and
deluge" (p. 15). —"It can easily be shewn
that the whole account of the creation (Gen.
i.-ii. L) is in the closest touch with, a Chaldsean
account of the creation which is no longer ex-

Notes 8 3

hint" (p. IS). "The word sapattu for Sabbath
is seen at the first glance to be a word in
Babylonian borrowed from the Chaldaean ; if
genuinely Babylonian, it must have been sabtu
(from wasab, ' to sit. resi ') " (p. L8 .vy. ).

Dr. Alfred Jeremias, pastor of the Lutheran
(. hurch at Leipzig, In/ Kampfe um Babel

ii ad mini, l'li a Wort zur Verstandigung
a ad Abwehr. Third, enlarged edition.
Leipzig, 1903 : 15 pp.

Prof. I). R. Kittel, Die babylonischen
Ausgrabungen und die biblische XJrge-
schichte. Second, unaltered edition. Leip-
zig, \ ( M)'2: .'}(*> ]>p. See also under Sec-
tion I [., page 91.

W. Knieschke, pastor at Sieversdorf, Bibel
ii ml Babel, El und Bel. Eine Rcplik
<tu J' Eriedrich DeUtzsc/is Babel und
Bibel Westend-Berlin, 1902; 64pp.

Prof. Dr. phil. und theol. Eduard Konig,
liiln I und Babel. Eine kulturgeschichtUche

84 Babel and Bible

Skizze. Sixth, enlarged edition, with
reference to the most recent literature on
the subject of Babel and Bible. Berlin.
1902 : 60 pp.
The verdict of P. Keil (cf. p. 90 below) is
as follows: •• In general it would appear from
Konig's pamphlet that lie is not too much
at home in Assyriology. His treatment of
Yahve-ilu is but calculated to strengthen this
impression. Why venture on the slippery
ice of Assyriology?' (op. cit., p. 6). As a
matter of fact, hardly anything more mediocre
could be imagined than pp. 8-10. 38 sqq., 45 4!>
of Konig's essay. God ** is the spiritual reality
existing before the world and outliving all its
phases, the heart of the world which throbs
throughout the world and remains true in all
the changes of history" (p. 53). "Harmony
between God and man forms the glowing gate
of the dawn of (iod's path in history, and har-
mony between Cod and man is the flag-decked
haven through which (iod's path in history
Hows into eternity" (p. 54). "In Babel men

Notes 85

strove to attain heaven, in the Hiblc heaven
descends into the wretched lite of man' (p.
.V.»). What a fine resounding tone it all has!
And yet it cannot blind us to the i'aet that
even Konig denies the verbal inspiration of the
Old Testament, accuses the Old Testament of
"undeniable errors" (p. 14), and thus strips
it of its character of divine revelation, as
understood by the Church. A ravening wolf
in spite of his sheep's clothing. Note also the
review by II. Winckler in the supplement to
the Nord-deutsche Allgcmeine Zeitung, Sunday.
August .'J. 1902. Konig's pamphlet has now
appealed in a seventh, enlarged edition. " with
a criticism of Delitzsch's latest utterances on
Babel and Bible."

Prof. I). Sam. Oettli, Der Kavipf um Bibel

und Babel. Ein reUgwnsgescJdchtUcher

Vortrag. Second edition. Leipzig, L902 ;

\V1 pp.

My citations are from the first edition.

Oettli, too. observes p. 13) that "according to

86 Babel and Bible

the almost universally prevailing conviction,
the existing state of the text compels us to
abandon the overstrained dogma of inspiration,

which sees in Holy Writ the unerring word
of God. inspired even down to its very word-
ing." Oettli's protest against the assumption
of an original revelation is very significant and
acceptable (pp. 12-15); note, in particular,
]). 14 : " That tradition of a concrete knowledge
of the world based upon original revelation,
whose form in Israel is pure, but everywhere
else degenerate, is a pure hypothesis, for which
no valid historical proof can be produced. It
is. therefore, all the more perverse to wish to
stamp acceptance of it as the mark of an
unbroken belief in Scripture. It derives its
sole strength from the dogma of inspiration,
which, although already abandoned, still influ-
ences us in a decisive manner from out the
dark background of our consciousness. In
many cases, indeed, it is born of an interest in
the faith that claims our respect, but not of
an)' indisputable historical attestation."

Notes S7

Rabb. Dr. Ludw. A. Rosenthal, Babel und
Bibel offer Babel gegen Bibel ? Ein Wort
zur Klarung. Berlin, 1902; :si j>|>.
Cf. P. Keil (p. <; note): "Rosenthal indulges

in elaborations as to principles; but his object

is not quite clear."

II.

Prof. Beuno Baentsch, Jena, Babel mul
Bibel. Eine Prufung des unter diesem
Titel erschienenen Vortrages von Friedrich
Delitzsch besonders auf die darin enthal-
tenen religionsgescMchtUchen . / usf&hrun-
gen, in the Protestantische Monatshefte,
edited by I). Julius Wehsky. VI., I Kit
s (August 15, L902). Berlin, 1902. Cf.
also two articles, signed B. B., " Noch
einmal Babel und Bibel" in the Thiiringe
Rundschau of the 2nd and ( .>th of March
L902.

Prof. 1). C. II. Cornill, Breslau, Deutsche
Litteraturzeitung, 1902, No. 27 (July 5).

88 Babel and Bible

Heinrich Danneil (Schonebeck a. E.), Babel
und Bibel: Magdeburgische Zeitung, No.
25, 1902, Beiblatt.

Privatdocent Dr. W. Engelkemper, .Minister,
Babel und Bibel: Wissenschaftliche Bei-
lage zur Germania, 1902, Nos. 31 (July
31) and .'32 (August 7). Berlin, 1902.

Influenced by Konig and Jensen. The fol-
lowing words of this Catholic theologian may be
cited for a specific reason : " Although Christi-
anity is founded upon the writings and tradition
of the New Testament, the truth of the New
Testament is nevertheless most intimately con-
nected with that of the Old, and is historically
and logically a consequence of the Old."

Prof. 1). Gunkel, Babylonwche und biblische
Urgeschichte. Christliche Welt. XVII..
1903, Xo. <) (Feb. 5), cols. 121-134.

IVol*. Dr. Peteb Jensen, Babel und Bibel:
Die christliche Welt. XVI., 1902, Xo. 21
(May 22), cols. 1ST V.)\.
Jensen's criticism proves to be sound in no

Notes 89

single point, and will, therefore, d<> no Lasting

harm to the cause of truth.

Franz Kaulen, Bonn. Babel und Bibel:
Literarischer Handweiser zunachst fur
alle Katholikeri deutscher Zunge. XL..
Nbs. 766 and 767, 1901-2.
The notice concludes as follows: "The
results of the three years' work of the German
Expedition do not as yet come up to our
expectations, especially as compared with the
results obtained by the American Expedition
in the same time. The share which the
German people have had in it docs not make
up for the deep-rooted harm involved in the
tendency of German research to set Science,
in this case ' Babylonology, 5 in the place of
Divine Revelation. Through Delitzsch, Babel's
ineradicable characteristic, that of being the
opponent of God and of Divine Revelation, has
been destined to be transferred to this record
and to the German Oriental Society.'" [pro-
test indignantly against this latter aspersion.

90 Babel and Bible

The German Oriental Society has nothing
whatever to do with the views represented in
my lectures on " Babel and the Bible : indeed.

both the Society and myself would be sincerely
grateful if other scholars, and above all Franz
Kaulen himself, could find the time and
inclination to instruct the members of the
German Oriental Society on the questions
mooted by me. or on kindred ones.

P. Kkii.. London. Babel uitd Bibel. Pastor
bonus. Xeitschrift fur kirchliche Wissen-
schaft und Praxis, edited by Domkapitular
Dr. P. Einig. XV., parts l. 2, :5 (Oct. 1.
Nov. 1. Dec. 1. 1902).
••The uninitiated person has not the faintest
idea of the difficulty in interpreting inscrip-
tions. In contrast to the .'57 Hebrew char-
acters, there are no less than some 20. 000
groups of signs and about 600 individual signs.
It is. therefore, self-evident what opportunity
there is for error in the course of decipher-
ment" p. 0. with note). Apart from this

Notes 9 1

distorted statement, this criticism, by a
Catholic priest, evidences a laudable knowledge
of Assyriology with which nothing I have me1
with in the case of evangelical theologians,
Pastor A. Jeremias excepted, can l>e compared.

Prof. 1). R. Kittel, Leipzig, Jahve in "Babel

a ml liilnl" : Theologisches LiteraturWatt,

XXIII.. \<». 17 (April 25, 1902 .

( ontains a number of errors, among them

being the statement that in the three names

lave-ilu, Iave-ilu, Iaum-ilu, it is a question <>f

one and the same person. Also. Noch einmal

Jahve in " Babel una 7 Bibel" : op. e/7.. No. is

Maj •_'. L902). Also, Der Monotheismus in

"Babel und Bibel" Allegemeine evangelisch-

lutherische Kirchenzeitung, 1902, No. 17

April 25, 1902).

Distrikts-Rabbiner Dr. S. Meyer, Regens-
burg,Zh'< Hypothesi n-glaubigen: Deutsche
[sraelitische Zeitimg, XIX.. No. 8 (20th
February 1902) ; and Nochmals Babel und
Bibel, op. <//.. No, 10 (6th March .

92 Babel and Bible

Babel mid Bibel: Neue Preussische (Kreuz-)
Zeitung, 1902, No. 211 (7th May). Signed
l[Lic. theol. Prof. Riedel, Greifswald].

Wolff, Babel und Bibel: Evangelische
Kirchenzeitung, 1902, No. 28 (cols. 657
662).

P. 7. MruAsiir & Sons. Vide The Baby-
lonian Expedition of the University of Penn-
sylvania. Series A, Cuneiform Texts. Vol.
IX. Business Documents of Murashu & Sons
of Nippur, dated in the reign of Artaxerxes I.
(464-424 B.C.), by H. V. Hilprecht and A. T.
Clay, Ph.D. Philadelphia, 1898.

P. 14. k * And as his fathers brother took
no care for his widowed mother."

The cuneiform words in question cannot
indeed be interpreted with certainty, but the
mention of the father's brother in immediate
connection with the information that the child
had never known its father, that the latter,
therefore, had died before its birth, leads me to

Notes 93

suppose that according to Babylonian custom
the brother-in-law of the wife, "the father's
brother," had duties towards the wife assigned
to him, of a nature somewhat similar to those
of the Israelitish b«3.

P. 16. The types are taken from the work by
Henry George Tomkins, Studies on the Times
of Abraham. London. Plate V., " Eight
typical plates in profile drawn hy the author."

1*. 27. Processions of the (ions.- We
read in Isaiah xlv. 20: "They have no know-
ledge that carry their graven image of wood,
and pray unto a God that cannot help." and in
xlvi. 1 : •• Bel has sunk down. Nebo is bowed
down, their idols are fallen to the lot of the
beasts and to the cattle, the things {i.e.
fabrications) that ye carried about arc made a
load. ;i burden to the weary beasts." There
can he hut few commentators here who do not
think in connection with, these passages of the
Babylonian processions of the gods, in which
Bel and Nebo wire carried in ceremonious
progress through the streets of Babel.

94 Babel and Bible

According to Jensen (op. cit, col. 488) I am
•incorrect in finding a mention of processions

of gods in Isaiah xlvi. 1.

P. 33. Aaron's Blessing (Num. \i. 24
sqq.). -What I have said as to the meaning

of the phrase in the blessing of Aaron.
" Yahwc lift up his face to thee," i.q., ••turn his
favour, his love, towards thee."' holds good in
every respect. When spoken of men. "to lift
the countenance to anyone or to anything"
means nothing more than "to look up at'
(so 2 Ki. i\. 32). It is used in .Job xxii. 26
(cf. xi. 15), as well as in 2 Sam. ii. 22. with refer-
ence to a man who. free from guilt and fault,
can look up at God or at his fellow-men. This
meaning, of course, is not appropriate if the
words are spoken of God. Then it must mean
precisely the same thing as the Assyrian, "to
raise the eyes to anyone," that is to say, to
find pleasure in one, to direct one's love to-
wards him : therefore not quite the same as
to take heed of one (as in Siegfried-Stade's
Hebraisches Worterbuch, p. 441). If it were

Notes 95

so. •• the Lord lilt up his countenance to thee"
would be equivalent to "the Lord keep thee."
When Jensen (op. cit., col. 191) lays stress on
the fact that the Assyrian expression is literally.
not to lift uj) "the lace." but to lilt up "the
eyes," he might with equal justice deny that
Assyrian hit Amman means the same thing as
the Hebrew hue Ammuu. As a matter of
tact, whereas the prevailing Hebrew usage is
•• if it be right in thine eyes." the Assyrian
says in every case, "it' it be right in thy coun-
tenance" (ina pdnika ; cf. himma [in<i] pan
mrri matwr) : "eyes" and "countenance" inter-
change in such phrases as this. In Hebrew
we find "to lilt up the eyes to one " used as
equivalent to " to conceive an affection for
one." only with reference to human, sensual
love (Gen. xxxix. 7). The value of the Assyrian
phrase, "to lift up the eyes to any one." in its
bearing on the Aaronite blessing, rests in the
fact that it is used with especial predilection
(though not exclusively, as .lenscn imagines) of
the gods who direct their love towards a chosen

96 Babel and Bible

individual or some privileged state-. When
Jensen concludes (col. 4i)0) that my choice of
this example as a specimen of the advantages
to be obtained from Assyrian linguistic analo-
gies is •• a failure," I gladly console myself with
the reflection that this fact of a deeper meaning
in the blessing of Aaron, which we owe to cunei-
form literature, obtained many years ago the
assent of no less a person than Franz Delit/sch.
P. 34. Note the date 2250 B.C., not L050,
as was given by a number of journals, follow-
ing a printers error in the Berliner Tageblatt.
When on page »*54 et seq., speaking of Ham-
murabi, I said. "lie prepared a great code,
which defined the civil law in all its branches,"
this was at the time a mere inference, chiefly
based upon a number of tablets from the
library of Ashurbanipal. This code of law has
now actually been found engraved on a block
of diorite, uearly 8 feet high, containing, apart
from the prologue and epilogue, 282 para-
graphs of laws. This unique discovery was
made bv the French archaeologist de Morgan

Notes 97

and V. Scheil Oil the Acropolis of Susa in

December January L901 02. ('/'. Lecture II.

P. .'{'.I. Canaan at the time of the Israelite
Incursion, a "domain completely pervaded
by Babylonian culture." This fact, which .1.
Barth attacks on trivial grounds, obtains ever
wider recognition. ('/'. Alfred Jeremias in the
" Zeitgeist " of the Berliner Tageblati of Kith
February 1903: " Further, at the time of the
immigration of the 'children of Israel." Canaan
was subject to the especial influence of Baby-
lonian civilization. About 1450 the Canaan-
itcs. like all the peoples of the Nearer East,
wrote in the Babylonian cuneiform character,
and in the Babylonian language. This fact.
proved by the literature of the time, forces us
to assume that the influence of Babylonian
thought had been exerted for centuries previ-
ously. Of late Canaan itself seems to wish to
hear witness. The excavation of an ancient

Canaanite castle by Prof. Sellin lias broughl t<>
light an altar with Babylonian genii and trees

of life, and Babylonian seals."

9 8 Babel and Bible

It may be briefly recalled here that the reli-
gion of the Canaanites with their god Tammuz,
and their Asherahs, bears unmistakable marks
of Babylonian influence, and that before the

immigration of the children of Israel a place
in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem was called
Bit-Ninth, after the Babylonian god Ninib.
There may have been actually in Jerusalem
itself a bit Ninib, a temple of the god Ninib.
See Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, V.. No. 183,
15, and cf. Zimmern, in the third edition of
Schrader's Die Keilinschriften mid rf<is Alte
Testament, second half. p. 411. Cf. also
Lecture II.. p. 184.

P. 40. The Sabbath.- The vocabulary II.
K. 32, No. 1. mentions, among divers kinds of
'days,' a urn nuh libbi (1. 1<>. a, b), that is to
say. a day for the quieting of the heart (sc., of
the gods), with its synonym sa-pat-tum. This
word, in view of the frequent use of the sign
jxtt for bat {e.g., su-pat, var. bat, •dwelling';
Tier. \ i. 94), miffht, and in view of the syllabary
82, «•> 1<S. 4159, col. I. 24, where ( 1) (Sumer. //)

Notes 99

is rendered by sa-bat-tu??i, must be understood
as sabattum. The statement in the latter sylla-
bary not only at the same time confirms the
view that the word sabattum means a day, but
it may also explain the sabattum to be the day
/car e^oxqv (because the day of the gods ?).
Again, neither from 83, 1-8, 1330, eol. 1, 25,
where ZUR is rendered by sa-bat-tim (follow-
ing immediately upon nuhhu), nor from IV. S.
where TE is rendered by sa-bat-tim [why not.
as elsewhere, in the nominative ?], may it be
inferred with any degree of certainty that
sabatt// could mean "appeasement (of the
gods), expiation, penitential prayer" (so Jensen
in Z. A. iv., 1889, pp. 274 *</</.), or that the verb
sabdtu eould mean "to conciliate" or "to be
conciliated'' (Jensen in Christliche Welt. eol.
492)— the latter all the less since the verb
sabdtu is hitherto only attested as a synonym
of gamai-u (V. R. 28, 14. e, f). For Sabattu,
therefore, the only meaning that may be justifi-
ably assumed at present is "ending (of work),
cessation, keeping holiday (from work)." It

ioo Babel and Bible

sccnis to me that the compiler of the syllabary
83, 1 s. 1330, arrived at ZUR and TE = sab-
batim from the equations 11). ZUR and 11).
TE= inn nuhhi or pv$sufii = /'//// Sabattim.

The Babylonian Sabattu is accordingly the
cA/// of the quieting of the heart of the nods and
thedayqfthe restingfrom mans work (as will be
readily understood, the latter is essential to the
former). When, therefore, in the well-known
calendar of festivals, IV. K. :i'2. 33, the seventh,
fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days
of a month are expressly characterized as days
whereon every kind of business should rest
should we not see in these days no other than
the sabattu-d&y '. The words in question in
the calendar of festivals may. according to
our present knowledge, be rendered thus:
"The shepherd of the great peoples shall not
eat roasted or smoked (?) flesh ( var. anything
touched by fire), shall not change his garment,
shall not put on white raiment, shall not offer
a sacrifice [arc these the prohibitions of uni-
versal application, even as regards the flocks

Notes i o i

of the shepherd '. the particular prohibitions
follow] : the King shall not mount his chariot,
as ruler he shall pronounce no judgment ;
the Magus shall not give oracles in a secret
place (one removed from profane approach), the
physician shall not lay his hand on the sick
it [the day] is not appropriate for any busi-
ness whatever ( '. una kal sib&ti : sib&tu here, it
would seem, used like ny, s'bu, in Dan. vi. 1<S:
"business, matter"). Accordingly it remains
true that the Hebrew Sabbath, "in the last
resort," originates in a Babylonian institution.
Xo more than this was maintained. When.
therefore, Konig emphasises that the Israelite
Sabbath received its specific sanction on
account of its tending to "the exercise of hu-
manity towards those who serve, and towards
the brute creation.'" there- is no occasion tor us
t(» dispute with him on the subject. The
setting apart of the seventh day in particular
to be the day in which we are to retrain from
business of every kind explains itself, as I
shewed years ago, from the fact that the number

io2 Babel and Bible

seven seemed to the Babylonians, as to others,
to be an 'evil' number (whence their descrip-
tion of the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first.
twentv-eighth days in the above-mentioned
calendar as VI). HUL. GAL., i.e., evil days).
Allied Jeremias (op. cit, p. 25) aptly recalls the
Talmudic story, according to which Moses
arranged with Pharaoh a day of rest for his
people, and when asked which he thought the
most suitable for the purpose, answered : " The
seventh, which is dedicated to the Planet Saturn;
works done on this day do not. as a rule, pros-
per, in any case."

P. 45. The Deluge. — Oettli says (p.
20 sq.): "The Old Testament traditional
materials are steeped in an atmosphere
of ethical monotheism, and bv this bath
are cleansed from the elements that are
confused and confusing, whether from the
point of view of religion or of ethics. The
Hood is no longer the operation of the blind
anger of the gods, but a "punishment of a
depraved race by the just God, moved by

Notes

103

moral considerations." This is not correct.
It was already to be inferred from the account
of Berossus thai in the case of the Baby-
lonians, also, the deluge was a punishment
(Siindflut) ; note his words: "the rest cried
aloud, when a voice commanded them to be
God-fearing, since Xisuthros, onaccount of his
piety, was removed to he with the Gods." If
it may he interred from this that the Babylonian
Noah escaped the judgment ofthe Hood merely
on account of his piety, while the rest of man-
kind was destroyed on account of their increas-
ins sinfulness, the inference is confirmed in
the cuneiform account in the words which Ea
addresses after the deluge to Bel, who had
brought it about : " upon the sinner lay his
sins/' etc. Konig (p. 32) observes: "The
spirit of the two traditions is totally different.
One feature shews this at once: the Baby-
lonian hero saves his belongings, dead and
alive, hut in the two Biblical accounts we
have in its place the higher point of view, the
preservation of the brute creation.'" What

104 Babel and Bible

blind infatuation ! Even Xisuthros, according
to the fragments of Berossus, received the
command " to take in winged and four-footed
beasts."" and the original cuneiform account
expressly says. " I embarked on the ship the
cattle of the Held, the wild beasts of the field."
Accordingly, Konig himself' must recognise
the "higher point of view" in the Babylonian
story as well.

P. 50. The Creation. For the Baby-
lonian story of creation, see L. W. King, The
Seven Tablets of Creation, or the Babylonian and
Assyrian Legends concerning the Creation of
the World and of Mankind. Vol. I. English
translations. London. 1902. " Mythological
features" (p. 50, 11. 15 sqq.) within the Biblical
account of the creation. As to the assumption
of the existence of a state of chaos. Octtli very
truly remarks (p. 12): "The conception of
original matter, which was not derived from
God's creative action, but has rather to be
overcome by it. cannot have grown up upon the
mother-soil of Israel's religion, which, at any

Notes

105

rate at the high level reached by the prophets,

looks at things from a strictly monotheistic
standpoint, and therefore excludes the dual-
istie conflict of two opposing primaeval prin-
ciples.'" Wcllhausens remark may also be
recalled here: "But chaos being granted, all
the rest is spun out of it : all that follows
is reflexion, systematic construction, which
we can easily control from point to point."'
Traces of polytheistic traits, also, adhere to
the Elohistic story of the creation. In Gen. i.
2<i we read, "let us make men in our image,
according to our likeness.*" where the assump-
tion of a so-called pluraiis majestaticus is. to
judge by Hebrew usage elsewhere, certainly
not excluded (cf. Isaiah xlvi. 5), hut rather
far-fetched. (Observe the words of Yahwe in
iii. 22, "See! the man has become as one of
us") On this Oettli rightly remarks (p. 10):
" It is not easy to bring the use of the plural
in a soliloquy, before man had been created,
into agreement with the strict monotheism of
a later date: nor is the divine likeness in

106 Babel and Bible

which man is framed easily reconciled
with that spirituality of Yahwe, which is so
strongly emphasised at a later date: when we,
renouncing all exegetical devices, allow the

words to bear their simple and most obvious

meaning : even though we admit that the Ribli-

cal writer has given a higher meaning to these
originally foreign elements in accordance with
his religious attitude." In fact, Gen. i. 26 and
Isaiah xlvi. 5 arc irreconcilable contradictions.
The polytheistic colouring, distinguishing gods
and goddesses, is peculiarly striking in Gen.
i. 27. when the three members of the verse are
considered in close connection one with the
other; "and God created man in his image, in
the image of God created he him. male and
female created he them."" Hut this cannot be

regarded as certain.

P. 56. Oettli, also (p. 11). following
Gunkel {Sclitipfung nn<l CJiaos, pp. 29 114),

comes to a conclusion identical with that
on p. 56 : " There are enough allusions in
the prophetical and poetical literature of the

Notes 107

()1<I Testament to make it palpably clear that
the old ["Babylonian 1 creation-myth survived
and in a highly-coloured form in the
popular conceptions of Israel."' And again,
•• There are in fact eases enough where the
original mythical signification of the monsters
tehdm, Bvyathdn, tannin, rahdb, is unmistakably
evident." Oettli cites Job i.\. 13 and Is. li. 9
(where, moreover, 'pierced' might be better
than 'dishonoured'), [n fact, when Is. li. 10
proceeds with the words. " Art thou not it
that dried up the sea. the water of the great
Tehom, that made the depths of the sea a way
lor the ransomed to pass over?' the prophet
actually couples "those mythical reminis-
cences with the deliverance from Egypt,
Yahva's second famous exploit on the waters
of Tehom. And it cannot occur to any one
who recalls how Yahwc's great achievement,
when the children of Israel crossed the Kcd
Sea. is elsewhere described and extolled
{e.g., Ps. cvi. !) 11. Ixxviii. L3), to apply to
any but primaeval times the words in Ps.

io8 Babel and Bible

Ixxiv. 13 sq. : "Thou brakest the heads of
the dragons in the waters, thou didst dash
to pieces the heads of the sea-monsters
(UvyCithari)." Livyatkdn, according to Job

iii. 8 also, is the personification of the dark
chaotic primaeval Hood, the sworn foe of the
light

If Konig himself is unwillingly obliged to
admit (p. 27) that the hook of .Job. in ix. 13
("God turns not his anger, the helpers of
rdhdb brake in pieces under him"), and in
xxvi. 12 ("in his power he smote the sea
and in his wisdom he dashed rdhdb to pieces"),
••alludes, in all probability, to the subjection
of the primaeval ocean." Jensen would cer-
tainly seem to stand quite alone when he
asserts (op. cit., col. 490), "where the Old
Testament speaks of a struggle <>n the part
of Yahwe against serpents and crocodile-like
creatures, there is no occasion to assume with
Delitzsch and with a considerable number of
other Assyriologists [add : as also with Gunkel
and most Old Testament theologians] a con-

Notes

109

nection with the Babylonian nivth of a Tiamat-

* •

struggle."

P. .">•_>. Oettli, also, very truly avows (p. L7)
that "all subordination of the researches of
Natural Science to the Biblical representa-
tion is wholly perverse, and is the more un-
intelligible as the external details in the second
account of the creation and in many other
passages in the Old Testament arc conceived
in a manner quite unlike the first. Let us.
therefore, unreservedly leave to Science that
which belongs to it. When, however, he
proceeds: "But let us also give to God that
which is God's; the world is a creation of
God's almighty will, which continuously per-
vades it as its living law this the first page
of Genesis tells us," it is less possible to
concur. Faith claims, and many passages
in the Old Testament assert, thai God is the
Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, but it
is just the first page of Genesis that does uo1
("in the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth and the earth was waste and

i 10 Babel and Bible

desolate," etc.) ; it leaves unanswered the
question, " Whence did chaos originate \
Besides, even among the Babylonians the

creation of the heavens and of the- earth is
ascribed to the gods, and the life of all ani-
mate creatures is regarded as resting in their
hands.

To Figures X7 ('the god Marduk') on p.
51, and .'J8 ('the conflict with the dragon") on
p. 52, Jensen (op cit., col. 4&9) observes with
reference to Tiamat : " Berossus calls this
creature a woman, she is the mother of the
sods, has a husband and a lover, and nowhere
throughout Assyrian or Babylonian literature
is there to be found even the slightest hint
that this creature is regarded otherwise than as
a woman without any limitation." Nothing
can be more perverse than this assertion, which
contradicts not merely what I have said, but
also a tact recognised by all Assyriologists.
Or is it no longer true that as a woman
gives birth to human beings, and young lions
are brought forth by lionesses, that, therefore.

Notes 1 1 1

a creature which gives birth to {itt<il<i(L
see Creation-epic, III. 24. and often), sirmahhe,
i.e., gigantic serpents, must itself be a great,
powerful serpent, a hpaKaiv /xeyas or some
serpent-like monster? And, as a matter of
fact, is not Tiamat represented in Babylonian
art as a great serpent (see. for example.
Chevne's English translation of the Hook of
the Prophet Isaiah in Haupt's edition of
the Bible, p. 206) '. Nor do I by any means
see in the scene represented in rii> - . .'J8 a
perfectly exact portrayal of Marduk's con-
flict with the Dragon, as described to us in
the creation-epic ; on the contrary, I speak
expressly and cautiously of a conflict between
■•the power of light and the power of dark-
ness" in general. It can be realised at once
that in the representation of this conflict,
especially in that of the monster Tiamat.
there was wide scope for the imagination. A
dragon could be represented in the most
manifold way. such as we see in fig. 38, or on
a stone found in Babylon (sec fig. 51 ). or in the

1 I 2

Babel and Bible

form of the sirrusM (or miuh~us$ii), which, in-
deed, appeals in the Epic as only one of the
eleven monsters called into lite by Tiamat. hut
which, according to II. K. l'.». 17 1>. can. and in
Babylonian art actually does, represent Tiamat
herself. For the beast which is placed at the
feet of the god Marduk in fig. >\~. and was
declared by me to he a representation of the

X£

Pig. 51. Marduk's conflict with the dragon.

draeron Tiamat. has since been clearly proved
to be such hv the German excavations.
The representations of the firrus&fi found
on the Gate of Eshtar at Babylon in relief.
unmistakably correspond to the animal figure
familiar to us from our illustration (fig.
37). If. in addition to what has been said
here, reference is made further to Zim-

Notes i i 3

mern's exposition in the third edition of
Schrader's Die Keilinschrifiten und das Alte
Testament, 2nd half, pp. 502 //.. the conclusion
will undoubtedly be reached that Jensen's
polemic against "Babel und Bibel" in the
ChristUche Welt, col. 489 sq., is entirely un-
justified.

To Page .54. My words are by no means
intended to suggest that "even the funda-

C to

mental laws of the human instinct of self-
preservation and morality, such as Love for
ones ueighbour, betray Babylonian origin' 1
(as was to he read in a number of newspapers,
following the Berliner Tageblatt). When a
Babylonian priest asks (IV. R. 51, 50 53 a):
- lias he broken into the house of his neigh-
bour? Has he approached the wife of his
neighbour '. Has he shed the blood of his
neighbour? Has he taken to himself the
garment of his neighbour?" 1 conclude, as
I have unambiguously said on |>. 53, simply
this, that prohibitions such as these are in-
delibly stamped on "every human heart."

1 14

Babel and Bible

The following statement of P. Keil (op. cit.,
p. .'J sq.) is therefore absolutely incorrect:
"Even the moral law, the conception of
sin .... originate from Babylon. Delitzsch,

it is true, does not say it so bluntly, but liis
exposition leads us to suppose that in these
matters lie admits connections between Babel
and the Bible other than those which are
purely collateral."

P. 56. The Fall. Anyone who reads my
remarks on p. 55 without bias must admit
that in dealing with the representation of a
Babylonian seal [fig. .'}'.»). reproduced on p. 56,
on the one hand, and with the Biblical story
of the Fall, on the other, my only aim was to
emphasise the circumstance that the serpent as
the corrupter of the woman is a significant feature
common to both. The fact that the two Baby-
lonian (inures are clothed, naturally prevented
me, also, from regarding the tree as the tree " of
knowledge of good and evil." It seems to me
at least more probable that there may be traced
in the biblical narrative in Gen. chap. ii. sq.,

Notes 115

another and older form which recognized but
one tree in the middle of the garden -the
Tree ol' Life. Note how in ii. 9 the words,
"and the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil," seem to be tacked on, as it were, and
how the narrator, busied with the newly intro-
duced tree of knowledge, so entirely forgets
the tree of life (sec iii. 3), that in ii. 16 he quite
inadvertently actually makes God allow man
to cat of the tree of life (in contradiction with
iii. 22). In regard to the tree, and that alone.
I agree with the late C. P. Tiele when he sees in
the Babylonian representation, "a god with his
male or female worshippers partaking of the
fruit of the tree of life'" "a picture of the
hope of immortality," as also with Hommel,
who observes (p. 23): "the most important
point is that it is quite evident that the tree
was originally thought of as a conifer a pine
or cedar whose fruit increased the power of
life and of procreation ; there is. accordingly,
an unmistakable allusion to the holy cedar of
Eridu, the typical tree of Paradise in the (hal-

1 1 6 Babel and Bible

daean and Babylonian legends." Jensen, also.
(col. 488) decides as follows: " If the repre-
sentation has any reference to the story of the
Fall, it might most preferably represent a
scene in which a god forbids the first-created
woman to partake of the fruit of the tree of life."
That one of the figures is distinguished by horns,
the usual symbol of strength and conquest (see
Amos \ i. 13) in Babylonia as also in Israel,
is. I take it. a very fine touch on the part of
the artist, indicating unmistakably the different
sexes of the two clothed human figures; and
whoever prefers to see in the serpent behind
the woman a "crooked stroke." "an orna-
mental dividing line." may do so few will
agree with him.

Many scholars arc of the same opinion as
myself. So Hommel, for instance (p. 'J.'i):
" the woman and the writhing serpent behind
her express themselves clearly enough ; and
.Jensen (col. 488) : " a serpent stands or crawls
behind the woman." As to the nature of this
serpent, nothing definite can be said so long as

Notes I I

we are dependent upon this pictorial representa-
tion alone. One is most disposed to regard it
as one of the tonus of Tiamat, who -like
Leviathan in Job iii. 8, and "the old serpent
in the Apocalypse — would thus be assumed
to be still in existence. Hut this is very
uncertain, and I have therefore borne in mind
II. H. 51, 44, where, doubtless following some
as vet unknown mvth, a Rabvlonian canal is
named after " the Serpent-god who shatters
(destroys) the dwelling of life." This passage
seems to me to argue at once against Jensen's
view, that we may perhaps sec in the two
figures, two gods that dwell by the tree of
life, and in the serpent, its guardian. More-
over, Zimmern (Die Keilinschriften und <l<is
Alii' Testament, <&& ed., second half, p. 504 sq.)
takes the serpent -god to be "without
doubt ultimately identical with the chaos-
monster." It may be noted, in passing, that
the text 1). T. (>7. published in Haupt's
Akkadische ////</ sumerische KeilschriftteoctCi p.
11!>. may deserve consideration in the future

i i 8 Babel and Bible

tor its bearing upon the biblical narrative of
the Fall. It is a bilingual text which tells of
a virgin, the " mother of sin."' who. having
committed an offence for which she is severely
punished, hursts into bitter tears "carnal
intercourse hath she conic to know, kisses hath
she conic to know ' and whom we find later
on lying in the dust smitten by the fatal
glance of the deity.

P. 59. " May his name continue to be
blessed." etc.

In the code of Hammurabi (xxvii. 34 et seg.),
we find the sinner cursed with the words :
" Mav Ciod forcibly extinguish him from among
the living- upon earth, and debar his departed
spirit upon earth from fresh water in Hades."

The last passage also confirms the great
antiquity of the Babylonian conception of the
condition of the pious after death.

1\ 59. The passage in Job xxiv. 18 sq. is
to be found translated and explained in a
satisfactory philological manner in my Das
Buck lob (Leipzig, 1902): "cursed be their

Notes i i g

portion upon earth. He turneth not l>v the
way of the vineyards, the wilderness and also
the heat shall despoil them, they go astray
imploring snow-water. Compassion forgetteth
him, the worm sneks at him. he shall be no
more remembered," ete. The passage, thus
rightly conceived, forms the welcome bridge to
the New Testament image of the pit (Hell).
glowing with heat, waterless, and lull of tor-
ments, and of the garden which the Oriental
mind cannot conceive of as lacking water.
an abundant How of runnine water. When
Cornill (op. tit., col. 1683)remarks: " I believe
I also am tolerably acquainted with the Hook
of Job .... but there is absolutely nothing
of the sort in Job xxiv. 18 .sy/..'" such words
only strengthen the pleasant feeling that the
philological comprehension of the Old Testa-
ment no longer necessarily permeates the com-
mentaries of the Old Testament theologians.

P. (52. The concluding verse of the
book of the prophet Isaiah (eh. Ixvi. 24 :
••and they shall go forth and look with joy

i 20 Babel and Bible

upon the dead bodies of those that have
revolted from me: how their worm dieth not,
neither is their fire quenched : and they are an
abomination to all flesh") implies thai those

whose bodies are buried in the earth will he
everlastingly gnawed by worms, and those
whose bodies are burnt with fire shall suffer
this death by fire continuously. The passage
is important in two respects: in the first place.
it shows that cremation is thought of as stand-
ing entirely on the same level with inhuma-
tion, and that, accordingly, there is not the
slightest opposition to cremation from the
Biblical side: in the second place, it follows
that the words. " where their worm dieth not,"
in .Mark's account of* the description of hell-
tire as L>i\en by .Jesus (eh. i\. 44. 4<J. 48), are.
strictly speaking, not quite in place.

P. 63 sq. Angels. CornilJ {op. cit., col.
L682), too, comes to the conclusion that •'the
conception of angels is. in every respect,
genuinely Babylonian." In speaking of "the
protecting angels which attend on men' (cf.

Notes 12 1

l\s. xci. 11 sq., Matt, xviii. 10), I had in my
mind such passages as tli.it in the well-known
Babylonian letter of consolation to the queen-
mother from Apia (K. 523): "Mother of the
king, my lady, be consoled (?) ! an angel of
grace from Bel and Nebo goes with the king
of the lands, my lord"; or that in the writing
addressed to Esarhaddon (K. 948): " May the
great gods appoint a guardian of health and
life at the side of the king, my lord " (similarly
SI. 2 L 75) : or. on the other hand, the words
of Nabopolassar, the founder of the Chaldaean
kingdom: "To the lordship over the land and
people Marduk called me. Me sent a tutelary
deity (Cherub) of grace to go at my side, in
everything that I did he made my work to
succeed' (see Mitteilungen der deutschen
Orient-Geselkchqft, No. 10. p. U sq.).

P. (J4-. Devils. As distinguished from
"the Old Serpent which is the Devil and
Satan " (p. 52), in which is preserved the
ancient Babylonian conception of Tiamat,
the primaeval enemy of the gods. Satan, who

122

Babel and Bible

appears several times in the later and latest

books ot* the Old Testament, and always as
the enemy of man. not of God (see Job, ch. i.
si/.. 1 Chron. xxi. 1, Zech. iii. 1 sq.), owes his
origin to the Babylonian belief in demons,
which, also, recognised a ilu limnu or 'evil god
and a gallu or ' devil.'

P. (><). "That such productions of ancient
Assyria should thus intrude themselves into
our own time." etc. In this connection I
should like to draw attention to (t. Hellmann's
most interesting communication, Ueber den
chaldaischen Ursprung modernen Grewitteraber-
glaubens (in the Meteorologische Zeitschrift,
June 1896, pp. 236-238), where it is shewn
that ancient Babylonian weather-lore survives
even at the present day in one of the most
popular of Swedish chap-books, Sibyllac
Prop/ietia, more particularly in a chapter
entitled Tordons marketecken—i.e., signs for
the weather and fertility throughout the whole
year, taken from the thunder in the separate
months.

Notes 1 2 3

P. 70. ' Canaanites.' ■ -The term, which
was used by me in its usual linguistic sense
(see, e.g., Kautzsch, Hebraische Grammatik,
27th rd.. ]). 2), is now replaced in my
lecture by 'North Semites,' simply because it
lias been so frequently misunderstood. A
proof that the kings of the first Babylonian
dynasty, Sumu-abi and his successors, do not
belong to that original Semitic stock of Baby-
Ionia. Semites mingled with Sumerians, but
rather to a later immigrating tribe of Semites,
is furnished by the Babylonian scholars them-
selves, who considered that the names of the
two kings Hammurabi (also Ammurabi) and
Ammisad&ga (or Ammizaduga) required ex-
planation as being foreign to the language, and
rendered the former by Kimta-rapastum, -wide-
spread family' (cf.uy^n-], Rehoboam), and the
latter by Kimi um-hrthnii. ' uprighl family'
(VR. 44, 21, 22, a. h). The representation of
the y (in cr. people, family), by // in the name
Hammurabi shows that these Semites, unlike
the older stock that had been settled for

124 Babel and Bible

centuries in Babylonia, still actually pro-
nounced the y as an y. Moreover, their pro-
nunciation of s as s Samsu in Sa-am-su-
iluna (cf. also Sumu-abi) as contrasted with the
older Babylonian Samsu — no less than the
preformative of the third person of the perfect
with ia (not i) — in the personal names of that
time ( lamlik-ilu, Iarbi-ilu, Iak-bani-ilu, etc. I
proves the existence of distinct Semitic tribes,
a fact first stated by llommel and Winckler,
which, in spite of Jensen's opposition (op. cit.,
col. 491), remains irrefutable. Linguistic and
historical considerations combine to make it
more than probable that these immigrant
Semites belonged to the Northern Semites.
more precisely to the linguistically so-called
"Canaanites" (i.e. the Phoenicians, Moabites,
Hebrews, etc.). as was first acutely recognised
by Hugo Winckler (see his Geschichte Israels).
who thus makes a particularly important
addition to his many valuable services. The
na of Hi) nn (in Siunsit-ilu na), which is taken to
mean "our God," is not sufficient to prove

Notes 125

tribal relationship with Arabia, since, in view
of the names Ammi-zad{bga i Ammi-ditana, it
is at least equally probable that Huiki repre-
sents an adjective (note the personal name
I-lu-na in Meissner's Beitrage ~~um altbabyl.
Privatrccht, No. 4; cf. fhxl). On the other
hand, zadiig, 'righteous,' may point to a
"Canaanite" dialect, both lexically (doubtless
= pm* : tor the verbal stem. cf. saduk, - he is
righteous,' intheAmarna tablets), and phoneti-
cally (obscuring of a to 6, u ; cf. aniiM, • I." of
the Amarna tablets, etc.): and the same may
be said. too. of such contemporary names
as la-Su-vh-ilu {cf. Phoen. Ba-a-al-ia-su-bu,
\'K. 2, <S4). Is Jensen really in a position "to
produce an entirely satisfactory explanation
from the Babylonian" of such names as
Iusub-ilu (col. 19] ) \

P. (i ( .) sq. II S*. God. All Semitic pre-
positions were originally substantives. As
regards the preposition " s ^. originally //. ••unto.
to, towards." it has not been perceived hitherto
that the most probable root-meaning is

126 Babel and Bible

obviously "turning towards, direction," which
has survived in Hebrew, in the phrase, "so
and so is ^y r bsk, i.e., at the disposal of thy
hand, is in thy power." Here b%b is treated
precisely like ".;?> in t.«?<. "at thy disposal'
(Gen. xiii. 9), and like the frequently occurring
Assyrian ina pdni, "at ones disposal." b$ and
ob are at times interchanged as synonymous;
note the instructive passages, Ps. lxxxiv. 8, on
the one hand, and xlii. 3 on the other. The
view that s x in the above phrase means
"power" may be traditional, like a thousand
other errors in Hebrew lexicography, hut it
has never been proved, and for this reason it
is not correct to maintain, with Konig (p. .'*<s>.
that el "certainly has some such meaning as
power or strength." The only meaning that
admits of proof is "turning towards, direc-
tion": by which the concrete meaning, "that
towards which a man turns, aim. goal." was
at once suggested. CO ipso [cf. NpiB, fear, and
object of fear: njipo, desire, and object of
•sire, and many others). The Sumerians

Notes 127

thought of their gods as dwelling up above in
that place to which man turns his eyes, in and
above the sky (therefore i^- = "heaven" and
"God"), and we ourselves, figuratively, say
-heaven" for "God" (cf. Dan. iv. 23). A Baby-
lonian psalm, too, calls the Sun-god digit
irsitim rapaMim, the "goal of the wide earth,"
i.e., the goal to which the eves of all the in-
habitants of the earth are turned : and finally
the poet in the book of .Job (xxxvi. 25), in
harmony with a number of other passages
from Semitic literature, extols God as the
one "on whom hangs everyone's gaze, whom
man beholdeth from afar." So, in like manner,
the oldest Semites gave to thai "God-like"
being who was conceived of as dwelling up
above in the sky. ruling the heaven and the
earth, the name il, el, as that Being to whom
their c\ es were directed (compare the analogous
use of K > as applied to God and that which
appertains to God ; Hos. \i. 7).

"The point at which the eye aims." such
as the sun or the sky. is. in my opinion, the

128 Babel and Bible

primary and original meaning of the word, and
Oettli (p. 23) is therefore wrong when he
supposes that I explain el as the "goal for

which the human heart yearns."' and so " is
due to an idea, which is of the nature of a pale
philosophical abstraction."' Naturally it could
not happen otherwise than that the man who
sought the deity above with his eyes should
also do so with his hands and with his heart at
the same time (cf. Lament, iii. 41).

Since the meaning "direction, goal" has
consequently been proved lor /'/. and the use of
this word as an appellation of the deity fully
accords with Semitic thought, it is inadmissible.
therefore, to assume yet another nomen primi-
tivum il; and my statement regarding the
divine name el holds good in every respect.
It is quite as useless and illegitimate to find a
verb for such a nom. prim, as /'/ ( Konig, p. 38) as
it is to seek a verbal stem for such other
primitive biliteral nouns as Jim, "day. mut,
•man." What Konig (p. 38 sq.) adduces be-
sides is not worth refuting. I would note in

Notes 1 29

passing that although I ciU' Lagarde in my
argument for e/='aim,' it is easily perceived
that I am quite independent of him never
having read his treatise to the present day ;
consequently what Jensen, for example, writes
(col. 4!).'J s<j.) against Lagarde's etymology in
no way affects my own argument.

Hut the etymology of the word /'/. el. is not
the most important feature. The main fact
remains that those North Semitic tribes, whom
we find settled in North as well as in South
Babylonia about 2500 B.C., and whose greatest
monarch subsequently was Hammurabi (about
2250), thought of and worshipped God as a
single spiritual Being. ( Note that the reference
is to that division of the North Semitic tribes
who immigrated to Babylonia and later be-
came settled there, not to the Sinnero-Seniitic
Babylonians.)

A number of journals incorrectly attribute
tome the view that "even the idea of God
among the Jews is to lie traced hack to Baby-
lonian conceptions <>(' the universe : and ( )cttli

130 Babel and Bible

(j). 4) wrongly says that according to my view
even "the name and worship of Yahwe him-
self, in conjunction with a more or less clearly
developed monotheism, is part of a Babylonian
inheritance."" Similarly. Konig's question
(p. .'37): "Does the Old Testament mono-
theism spring from Babylonia ( " with all that
is implied in it. rests upon a misapprehension
of the words I used in the first edition (p. 46,
11. 11 sqq. ; p. 47. 11. 12-18), which. I venture
to suppose, did not admit of being misunder-
stood.

Xow. as regards those persona] names
compounded with /"/ which are particularly
common during the period of the first Baby-
lonian dynasty, it is a fundamental error to
maintain with Konig (pp. 40. 42) that in the
case of notorious polytheists the names must
be translated and interpreted "« (iod has
given," or to ask with Oettli (p. 2:J) : "who
can prove that those names are not to be
understood from a polytheistic point of view :
• a God has given,' ' <i God with me'?' Not

Notes 1 1 1

to mention other reasons, this interpretation is
shipwrecked upon such names as llu-amranni
"God. regard me!*' Ihi-lurani "God, turn
again!" and others. Or are we to suppose
that sneh a name as Bdb-ilu no Longer means
"God's gate," but "gate of a God"? No!
the age of Hammurabi continues to possess
those names which are so beautiful and of
such importance for the history of religion :
Ilu-ittia "God with me.*' Ilu-amtafiar "God I
invoke," Ilu-abi, Ilu-milki " God is my father,
my counsel," larbi-ilu "great is God," lamlik-
ilu "God sits in command."" IbU-ina-ili
"through God he came into existence."'
AvU-ilu "servant of God."" Mut(um)-ilu "man
of Cod' ( = Methushael), Ilmna-lci "God is
mighty," Ilitm<i-<il>i - God is my father.'
Il&ma-ilu " God is God," Summa-ilu-ld-ilia " if
Cod be not my God,"" etc. Obviously the
names are to be judged as a whole. In certain
cases (cf. also isolated Assyrian names like
Xa id-ilii i. •• dod " may certainly be regarded
simply as an appellative, somewhal after the

i 72 Babel and Bible

manner as in the phrase in the Laws of
Hammurabi, to declare something makar Hi
" before God," or in the phrase to swear "by
(.od {ilu) and by the king," which appears

some hundred times in the contemporary
Babylonian contract-tablets (cf. 1 Sam. \ii.
.*}. .>. "by Yahwe and by the King"); but
viewed as a whole, they make it impossible-
it seems to me — for ns to think of ilu as the
"God of the city or of the family" (P. Keil.
p. 61), or as the "special tutelary deity"
(Zimmern in A\/Y'. 3rd ed., second half,
p. :i.>4). But it is precisely where "a people
who have not been philosophically educated is
endeavouring to particularize its terms and con-
cepts and to render them as concretely as pos-
sible" ( Keil, op. cit.. p. •>!>). that one would neces-
sarily expect to find either the specific name of
the deity everywhere intended, or —where the
tutelary nod of the family or of the newly-
born babe is meant the term "my God' or
••his God." An unbiassed and unsophisticated
consideration of all these and other names

Notes 133

of the time of Hammurabi Leads one again
and again to suppose rather thai they took
their root in religious ideas which differed from
the indigenous polytheistic mode ol* thought
in Babylonia. The character and value of this
monotheism cannot be estimated with our
present sources of knowledge, but. at the most,
they can be interred from the later develop-
ment of " Yahwism.'

P. 70. On }). 40 sq. of the first edition I
had said, "and since this goal can naturally
be only one." On mature reflection these
words have been altered into "and since the
Divine Essence was viewed by them as a
unity."

P. 71. Jahwe. -It must be resolutely
upheld that, in the two personal names
la-d-ve-ilu (Bu. 91, 5 !>. 314, Rev. ii. see
Cuneiform Texts, viii. 20). and la-ve-ilu (Bu.
91, .') '.). 544, I. 4, see Cuneiform VV.r/.v. viii. 34),
the reading lave is the only possible one in tin
question. The opposition to my reading
which is incontestable in the present state of

134 Rahul and Bible

our knowledge has brought to light a lament-
able state of ignorance on the part of the
critics : and to this also may be ascribed the
manifold insinuations in which they have
thought they might be allowed to indulge, as.
for example, when Prof. Kittel ventures to
speak of my reading as "a manoeuvre" with a
purpose {((Is einem tendenziosen " 3fanover").
It' only for the sake of checking' this exhibition
of ignorance, I should like to submit briefly
and plainly to my theological critics, and also
to one and all of their Assyriologica] " ad-
visers," the following points. According to
my Assyrische Lesestiicken, 4th ed., p. '27.
No. 223, the sign 57. possesses the following
syllabic values : pi ; tdl ; /// ; tarn ; in Baby-
lonian, moreover, especially meve: ma yd, a;
(7'//) : for which it would be better to say VC ;
va ; a : {no. Hut anyone who has made
himself even to a slight extent familiar with
the writing of the time of Hammurabi, knows
(1) that even granted the reading Ia-u-ma,
this ma can no longer be viewed as the

Notes i 3 5

emphatic particle ma (so, quite wrongly,
Konig, p. 48 .sy/., Kittei and others) ; this is
written, without exception, with the usual
sign for ma, §Ej. To interpret the nanus
under discussion as "Yes, Yclu is God" is
absolutely out of the question. Whoever is
disposed to deny this must produce hut one
example, where the emphatic particle ma is
written with the sign i^-. Moreover, it may
be incidentally remarked that the m in la-il-
wni-ilu can only be the mimmation, and not the
abbreviated ma. (2) The reading favoured by
C. Hezold: Ia-a-bi-ilu {'A A xvi., p. 41.5 .sy/.) is
also impossible, because while in Hammurabi's
time the si ( »-n hi £3 also represents the syllable
/;/, conversely, ^Jr>_ is never used also for hi.
(•'J) Further reflection shows, too, that the
reading I<i-{<( )-pi-iln cannot be considered.
The sign ^y>- is certainly used for pi even in
Hammurabi's time —so several times in the
contracts published by Meissnerin his Beitragc
\nni altbabylonischen Privatrecht {eg. Pi-ir-
Istar, Pi-ir-huiihippi), and likewise in IJanunu-

136 Babel and Bible

rabi's Law-book (e.g. upitti) but pi written
^ is incomparably more frequent, as in the
seventy-nine letters of that period published
by King, where pi is not onee rendered by
^-. but everywhere by %. (There is no
need here to touch upon the confused remarks
by S. Daiches in ZA xvi.. p. 403 sq.) In addi-
tion to the above, it is to be added that a
•• Canaanite verbal-form iapi, id-pi. could only
be derived from a root nan or the like, but
such a root does not exist. Instead of Ia(')ve-
ihi. one mini it even conceivably read Ia-
Ca ii-) va //- ilu. with radical v, but thereby
would at onee rightly think of recognising in
it the god nirp, the very view which has been
rejected. Consequently my reading Ia-ve-ilu
remains, under the circumstances, the most
probable, as also the only one that requires to
be taken serious account of.

As regards the meaning of the name
IuC rrc-ihi. I would express myself with less
posith eness than I have done in the case of

flu- reading. It is certain that Konig's pro-

Notes 137

posed interpretation (p. 50 -sy/. ): "may God
[why not ' <( God' '.] protect,"' from the Arabic
hama "to protect," like Barth's (p. 19) " God
grants life" {Ia-ah-ve-ilu), is in the highest
degree improbable. As names of foreign
origin they must necessarily have been pro-
nounced Iahve-ilu, not IcCve-ilu or even Idve-ilu
{cf. Ra-hi-im-ili), and only at the last extremity
could we venture to accept the view that the
pronunciation of these foreign personal names
had been gradually adapted to Babylonian,
and had thereby at once become quite unin-
telligible. No, if any verbal-form can be
supposed to lie in Ia've, lave, it is most
reasonable to think of the verb mn, the older
form of hm, presupposed even in Exod. iii. 14,
and, with Hommel (p. 11, cf. also Zimmern
in Theol. Liter aturblatt, 1902. No. 17, col.
196), to interpret as " God exists." But where
in the whole realm of the North Semitic people
is there to be found a personal name com-
pounded with nin, rvn (w ) ? There is none !
My interpretation " Ja've is God" may con-

i *8 Babel and Bible

sequently still be in itself bv Par the most
probable.

But the aame of a third man of the same

period now comes upon the scene. Id-i'i-inii-ilu
(Bu. ss, 5 \'2. .'}l >( .>. see Cuneiform Texts,
iv. 27). In the interests of our science it can-
not he too deeply lamented that Honimel (op.
c//.. p. 11) announces to the world the existence
of a Hahvlonian ffod " Idu = Ai. the moon." a
Babylonian or "old Semitic god, that exists
nowhere save in his own imagination. Out of
the whole of the Babylonian literature, let
Hommel adduce only one single pass:i<_>e where
a Hahvlonian ffod ''Id or ,l Ia-u. Ia'u occurs.
and as a name of the moon-god ! lie cannot
do so. Ia-u-um-illi still remains a name
foreign to the language; it belongs to the
\orth Semitic (more precisely, Canaanite)
tribes, who have been dealt with above at some
length in the notes on pp. 123 L29. Among
these tribes we find no other god la-u, hut that
same god in; ZiaM, whose title is contained in
the names la-ii-ha-zi = Tn$rtrr, la-a-Jiu-u-la-M-

Notes 1 3 ()

im, la-hu-u-na-ta-nu (in Hilprecht's Murashii

& Sons), and others. Now this divine name,
lulu), which occurs at the beginning, and
especially at the end, of Hebrew personal
names, being the shorter form of Iakve, i.e.
" the existing one " (so also Stade, Lehrbuch
der hebraischen Grammatik, p. 165), pre-
supposes the fuller form. And if even to the
Jews of the exilie and post-exilie age the name
Yah we was by no means a /io/nc// ineffabile— as
the many names of that late period show (77/-
se--ia-a-va = Wf$NP. ,k Isaiah," Pi-li-ia-a-va = rv 1 ??,
etc.) — then surely we may even more cer-
tainly say that it was not so in that remote
age in which the divine name Vahwe was far
from possessing that degree of sanctity which
it was afterwards to acquire in Israel. The
name Iahum-ilu accordingly presupposes a
fuller name Iave-ilu with the same meaning.
And when such a name as Ia-'-ve-ilu, Ia-ve-ilu,
is actually twice attested, should it not be
recognized as such — and the more unreservedly
since the failure to recognize it by no means

140

Babel and Bible

nets rid of the existence either of a North
Semitic (" Canaanite ") divine name Ialm. in
every respect identical with Yahwc. or of a
name Iaku-ilu "Yahu is God," equivalent to
the Hebrew s x'v (Joel), and a thousand years
older than the prophet Elijah's watchword on
.Mount Carmel : "Yahw£ is God' (1 Kings
xviii. :v.)) \

That Barth's leading (p. i<i). Ia-ku-um-ilu,
which would he an abbreviation of Ia-ah-we-ilu,
is to be rejected a limine requires no proof.
Even Jensen (<>/>. cit., col. 491 sq.) notes that
it is "certainly in the highest degree probable
that both compounds contain the divine name
lahvch-Iahu" and rightly adds : " since then the
TatVU in the name cannot be Assyrian or Baby-
lonian, it is of foreign origin, and consequently
the whole name is in all probability 'Canaanite,'
and the bearer or bearers of it accordingly
• Canaanite(s)." He proceeds, however, to
sav : " Hut just as one could scarcely con-
elude from the presence of a .Midler or a
Schulze in Paris that the Germans were the

Notes 141

prevailing people there, so the appearance of a
lawu-il(u) in Babylonia before 2000 b.c. need
not be taken to prove anything beyond the
fact that bearers of this name were occasion-
ally able to reach Babylonia." Here I may
confidently leave the unprejudiced reader to
decide whether the tasty analogy of Muller
and Schulze is only remotely justified in view
of all such names as Tarbi-ilu, lamlik-ilu, etc.,
mentioned above on p. 70 — not to speak of
Hammurabi, Ammi-zaduga, ete. Besides,
even Jensen himself, as one can see, cannot
help leaving the divine name Iahve (Iahvu)
attested even before 2000 b.c ; cf., too,
Zimmern (KAT, third ed., p. 408 n. (5):
"Though a divine name— as is not unlikely
may be embodied in ia-u-um, possibly even the
name Iahu, Yahwe" this is sufficient for the
present, the acceptance of my reading Ia-(a-)ve
and the acknowledgment that my interpreta-
tion is correct may follow later.

Accordingly, it* the equation Ia-u-um = -irp,
in*., may stand, we are doubly justified in

142 Babel and Bible

regarding the contemporaneous names ////-
idinnam "God has given," Sd-ili "belonging
to Cod. Ilu-amtahar "God I invoke," Ilu-
i/'irniii "God, turn again!" etc., as being
equivalent, as far as their signification is con-
cerned, to the corresponding Hebrew names
\r\:?a, bub, rs-rrsi". httiw.

To P. 72. The religion of the immigrant
Canaanite tribes quickly gave way before the*
many-membered Pantheon of the inhabitants
of the country, which was of Sumerian
origin, and had been estabhshed for many
centuries. —A similar thing may be observed,
almost two thousand years later, in the
ease of the subjects of the Kingdom of
Judah who were transferred to Babylon. Ii
is true that we find often enough in the
trade records of Achaemenid times, names of
Jewish exiles compounded with lava but
when the son of one Malaki-idva is called
Nergal-JEtir, or one JaSe'-Idva (Jesaia) names
his daughter Tdbat-{il)-I$hir, i.e.. " I shir (or
[star) is friendly," it is obvious how great was

Notes 143

the influence which the native Babylonian
polytheism exerted over all who came within
its reach.

1*. 75. " Notwithstanding that free and
enlightened minds taught openly that Nergal
and Nebo, Moon-god and Sun-nod. the
Thunder-god Ramman, and all other gods
were one in Marduk, the god of light."

On these words of mine Jensen (op. (it., col.
M)X) felt called upon to make the following
remarks, which, as might be expected, have
been gladly spread abroad by Konig (p. 4:J ,vy. |
and others: "This would, of course, he one
of the most momentous discoveries that has
ever been made in the history of religion, and
it is. therefore, extremely regrettable that
Delitzsch conceals from us his authority.
Nothing of the kind is to he gathered from
the texts to which I have had access that
I think I can confidently affirm and we
urgently request him. therefore, as soon as
possible, to publish word for word the passage
which robs Israel of its greatest glory, in the

144 Babel and Bible

brilliancy of which it has hitherto shone that

it alone of* all nations succeeded in attaining to
a pure monotheism." Provided Jensen abides
by what he has said. Israel is now indeed
robbed of this its greatest glory by the New-
Babylonian cuneiform tablet (81,11 .'J. 111).
which has been made known since its publication
in lcSiio by Theo. (i. Pinches in the Journal
of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute.
Although only fragmentarily preserved, one
of the surviving pieces informs us that all,
or at any rate the highest, of the deities in the
Babylonian Pantheon are designated as one
with, and as one in. the god Marduk. I quote
here a few lines only :
*Nin-ib Marduk sa alii.

NSrgal Marduk sa kablu.

u Za-md-md Marduk Sa tahazi.
,l Bil Marduk sa bch'itu u mitluktu.

Xuln'i Marduk sa nikasi.

''Sin Marduk munammir musi.

''Sidihis Marduk sa kindti.

u Addu Marduk sa zunnu.

Notes 145

That is to say (<•/! the analogous texts
II. R. 58, No. 5 ; II. H. 54, No. 1 : III. R.
<>7. No. 1, etc.), the god Marduk is written
and called Ninib, as being Possessor of Power ;
Nerval or Zamama, as being Lord of the

Conflict Or Battle ; Bel, as being Possessor of

Lordship ; Nebo, as being Lord of Business ( ?) ;
Sin, as being Illuminator of the Night : Samas,
as being Lord of all that is just ; and Addu,
as being god of Rain. Marduk. accordingly,
is Ninib as well as Nereral, Moon-god as well
as Sun-god, and so on the names Ninib and
Nergal, Sin and Samas are simply different
ways of describing the one god Marduk ; they
are all one. with him and in him. Is not
this •• [ndo-Germanic monotheism, the doctrine
of a unity evolving itself out of an original
multiplicity " \

Postscript (2nd January 1903). Jensen's

article: Friedrich Delitzsch und der babylon-

ische Moiiothcisniiis. in the Christlichc 1f r c/t.

1903, No. l (1st January), which he himself has

146 Babel and Bible

just sent me, is wrong from beginning to end.
Certainly if the text read Marduk a Nin-ib sa
alii Marduk a Nergal sa kablu, etc. But it
docs not run s<>! The whole of Jensen's pro-
nouncement seems to me to be a hasty
retreat. Let the future decide!

BABEL AND BIBLE

Second Xccturc

Delivered before the Members of the Detttsche Orient-
Geselhehaft in the presence of the German Emperor

i;v

FRIED RICH Dl.LITZSCH

ORDINARY I>KOPF.SSOR OF ORIENTAL PHILOLOGY AND
ASSYRIOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN

PREFACE TO LECTURE II

Who is this coming from Edom ? in bright-
red garments from Bosra '.

Splendid in his raiment, vaunting himself
in the fulness of his strength ?

•• It is I (Yahwe), that speak in righteousness,
that am mighty to save!"

Why is there red on thy raiment, and thy
garments like his that treadeth the wine-press '.

" The wine-press have I trodden alone, and
of the peoples there was no man with me.

And I trod them in mine anger and trampled
them in my fury,

And their life-stream besprinkled my gar-
ments, and all my raiment have I defiled.

For a day of vengeance was in my mind and
my year of release had come.

147

I4-H Babel and Bible

And I looked, because there was no helper,
and was stupefied, because there was no
supporter.

But mine own arm wrought help tor me,
and my fury was my support,

And 1 trod down the peoples in mine anger,
and made them drunk with my fury.

And spilled their lite-stream on the earth."

Surely, both in diction, style, and spirit
a genuine Bedouin battle-song and ode of
triumph. No! This passage (Is. lxiii. 1-6),
with a hundred others from prophetical litera-
ture that are full of unquenchable hatred
directed against surrounding peoples againsl
Edom and Moab, Assyria and Babylon, Tyre
and Egypt that for the most part, too, are
masterpieces of Hebrew rhetoric, must repre-
sent the ethical prophets and prophecy of
Israel, even at their most advanced stage!
The outcome of certain definite events, these
outbursts of political jealousy and of a pas-
sionate hatred, which, judged from the human
standpoint, may. perhaps, be quite natural and

Preface 1 4.9

comprehensible enough such outbursts on
the part of generations long since passed
away must still do duty for us children of

* **

the twentieth century after Christ, for the
Christian peoples of the West, as a Hook of
Religion, for morality, and for edification !
Instead of immersing ourselves in " thankful
wonder" at the providential guidance shewn
by God in the case of our own people, from
the earliest times of primitive Germany until
to-day, we persist either from ignorance,
indifference, or infatuation in ascribing to
those old-Israelitish oracles a ' revealed ' char-
acter which cannot be maintained, either in
the light of science, or in that of religion or
ethics. The more deeply I immerse myself
in the spirit of the prophetic literature of the
Old Testament, the greater becomes my mis-
trust of Yahwc. who butchers the peoples with
the sword of his insatiable anger ; who has but
one favourite child, while he consigns all other
nations to darkness, shame, and ruin : who
uttered those words to Abraham (Gen. xii. .'*):

150 Babel and Bible

•• I will bless those- who bless thee, and those
who curse thee will I curse" I take refuge
in Him who. in life and death, taught : " Bless
those who curse you": and. full of confidence
and joy, and of earnest striving after moral
perfection, put my trust in the Cod to Whom
Jesus has taught us to pray the Cod Who is
a loving and righteous Father over all men on
earth.

FRIEDRICH DELITZSCH.

(ll VRLOTTENBURG,

1st March L.Q03.

LECTURE II

What good purpose is served by the on-
slaught directed against the choice of "Babel
and Bible" as a title, since logic, at any rate.
imperatively demands such a sequence of
terms '. And how can anyone imagine it
possible to ban discussion of* these grave and
so far as the Bible is concerned — all-em-
bracing questions with the shibboleth of
' original revelation,' discredited as the latter
term already is by a forgotten verse 3 of the
Old Testament \ Moreover, does "the ethical
monotheism of Israel " in its essential character
as "a real revelation of the living God" really
form, after all. such an unassailable, such a
triumphant bulwark, in the intellectual conflict
which Babylon has kindled in our days \ It is
certainly a pity that so many people should

1 Set- p. jo;.

151

*52

Babel and Bible

allow the joy naturally felt over the rich harvest
that Babylon is continually offerine for the
* elucidation and illustration " of the Bible, to be
turned into gal] and bitterness by a prejudiced
regard for dogmatic considerations — to the
extent, indeed, of ignoring its value and utility
altogether. And yet what a debt of gratitude
has been laid upon all readers and interpreters
of the Bible for the new knowledge already

Fig. 52. — Ruin-mounds <>f Cuthah.

made and continually being made -avail-
able for us by the laborious excavations on the
sites of Babylonian and Assyrian ruins!

For my own part, I avoid, on principle, ever
speaking of 'corroborations' of the Bible.
For in truth the Old Testament would be
badly served as a source of ancient history if
it first needed corroboration at every turn
by the cuneiform monuments. When, how-

Babel and Bible

*53

ever, the Biblical book <>l* Kings informs
us ('2 Kings xvii. 30) that the inhabitants
of a certain town Cuthah, who had been
settled in Samaria, worshipped the god
Nergal and when we now not only know

--££2

^ ir^^rzsr^^^

i t£%'-*m

Fig. 53. — Assyrian letter from Chalach.

that this Babylonian town of Cuthah lies
buried beneath the rubbish-mound of Tell
Ibrahim (fig. 52), seven hours' journey north
west of Babylon, but also that a cuneiform
text expressly declares that the local deity of
Cuthah was called Nergal, it is something to

x 54

Babel and Bible

be grateful for: and though there seemed
small likelihood that the city and district of
Chalach, to which a portion of the Israelites
taken captive by Sargon were transplanted

**
>a^

Fig. 54. — Tlie Black Obelisk of Salmanassar II. (StiO Si'.", r. < . .

(2 Kings wii. <i. xviii. 11). would ever be
discovered, yet it is worth noting that we
now possess out of Ashm-hani-pal's library at
Nineveh a letter from Chalach (ti»> - . .*>.'}). in

Babel and Rib]

155

which a certain Marduk-nadin-achi, emphasiz-
ing his proved unbroken loyalty, prays the
king to procure the restoration to him of

Mt'.r 1 iiaii.aw in

m h : \

iim

Figs. 55 and 56.— Israelites of the time of Jehu (840 B.C. .

his estate, which the king's father had pre-
sented to him. and which had afforded him
the means of livelihood during fourteen years,
until he had been deprived of it lately by the

i 5 6

Babel and Bible

ffovernor of the land Mashalzi. With respect
to the inhabitants of the northern [sraelitish
kingdom, whom the famous Black Obelisk of

I '-■ A

Figs. 57 and 58.— Israelites of the time of Jehu (840 B.C.).

Shalmaneser 1 1, (fig. 54) brings so vividly before
our eves in its second tier of bas-reliefs (fi^s.
55 58) they are the ambassadors of King

Babel and Bible 157

Jehu (840 B.C.) with various sorts of presents.
We now know all three districts where the
'Ten Tribes found their grave : Chalach some-
what east of the mountainous region, named
Arrapaehitis. where the sources of the upper
Zab take their rise : the district of Gozail on
the bank of the Chabor, in the neighbour-
hood of Xisibis: and the towns of Media.
Until quite recently the capture and sack
of the Egyptian Thebes mentioned by the
prophet Xahnm (eh. iii. 8 sqq.) remained a
riddle, in so far that no one was able to say
to what event the prophet's words had refer-
ence : "Art thou (Nineveh) better than \o-
Amon {i.e. Thebes), that lies among the Nile-
streams, (that has) the water round about her
. . .'. She also had to go into captivity, her
children also were dashed to pieces at the
corners of all streets, and over her honourable
men they cast the lot. and all her magnates
were bound with chains." Then came the
discovery at Nineveh of the magnificent dec-
agonal clay prism of Ashur-bani-pa] (fig. 59),

■ 5 8

Babel and Bible

which in its second column narrates that it
was Ashur-bani-pal who. while on the way from
Memphis in hot pursuit of the Egyptian King
I'rdamane. readied Thebes, sacked it. and
carried away from Thebes to Nineveh, the city
of his sovereignty, silver, gold, precious stones,
the whole of the palace-treasures, the inhabi-

I ! . 59. — Decagonal clay prism of Ashur-bani-pal.

tants, men and women — a vast. Immeasurable
booty.

Then, again, how great a service has
been rendered by the cuneiform literature for
the elucidation of the language of the Old
Testament! The Old Testament repeatedly
mentions an animal called rc'tiu. a wild un-
tamable creature, equipped with terrible

Babel and Bible i 59

horns (IV xxii. 22), nearly related to the hull
(Deut. xxxiii. 17: Ps. xxix. (i ; cf. Isaiah
xxxiv. 7), the idea of employing which like a
tame ox for the work of the fields is to the
author of the Hook of .Job (xxxix. 9 sqq.) some-
thing altogether terrible and inconceivable :
" Will the re cm be content to serve thee, or
will he lodge in thy crib '. Canst thou bind
the re Pin with the guiding-rope in thy furrow.
or will he harrow the valleys after thee?' 1
Though the buffalo roams in herds about the
woods on the farther side of the Jordan at the
present day, it was not until shortly before
the commencement of our era that the species
migrated from Arachosia to hither Asia: it has
therefore been customary, on the strength of
a comparison with the Arabic USUS loquendi,
which designates the antelope "wild ox,'
and bestows on the antelope leukoryx the
name of rim, to understand by the Hebrew
re cm this particular kind of antelope. How-
it could have occurred to a poet, however, to
imagine this creature (tig. 60) which. In spite

i6o

Babel and Bible

of its Long, pointed horns, is still only a deli-
cately formed, tender-eyed antelope as yoked
to a plough, and then to shudder at the very
thought of such a thing, was not explained.
The cuneiform inscriptions have taught us

Fig. 60. A-iitelojie leukoryx.

what the re mu really was: it was a powerful,
fierce-looking wild ox. equipped with strong
curved horns, an animal of the forest and the
mountain, accustomed to scale the peaks of
the highest hills, a creature endowed with
immense bodily strength, to hunt which, as in

Babel and Bib]

the case of the lion, was by reason of its
dangerous character a favourite pastime of the
Assyrian monarchs. The existence of this
animal, which is nearly related to the bos urns
of Caesar {Bell. Gall., vi. 28), as well as to the
bison, is. so far as the district of* the Lebanon
is concerned, made certain by natural history;

.--U^

*-*>.-

Fig 61. — Assyrian representation of the wild ox C 1 ».»■'< -in).

the cuneiform inscriptions make mention of

the revm times without number, and the

alabaster reliefs of the Assyrian royal palaces

(fig. < - l) set it before our eyes in palpable

shape. In the matter of the re cm the German

Oriental Society has earned special distinction.

For King Nebuchadnezzar relates thai he

adorned the city-gate of Babylon, which was

1 62 Babel and Bible

dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. with bricks.
on which rSmu and immense serpents, standing
erect, were depicted : and the recovery of this
[shtar-Gate, together with the work of laying
it bare to a depth of fourteen metres, where
the water-level begins, constitutes one of the

Fig. 62. — Babil, the northernmost ruin-mound of Babylon.

most important achievements of recent years
in our excavations on the site of Babylon.

Hail to thee. () mound of Babil (fig. (12).
to thee and thy companions on the palm-girt
hanks of Euphrates ! Mow the pulses quicken
when, after long weary weeks of work with
pick and spade, under the scorching rays of an

Babel and Bible 163

Eastern sun. the long-sought building is dis-
closed—when, inscribed on an immense slab

of stone, the name * Ishtar-Gate' is read, and,
pieee by piece, the great double-gate of
Babylon, flanked northward by three mighty
toweis. emerges from the bowels of the earth
in splendid preservation. Whichever way we
look, on the wall-surfaces of the towers as well
as of the Gateway-passages, every part swarms
with reliefs, remu coloured on their surface
with enamels standing out against the back-
ground of dee}) blue (fig. C>:$). "Mightily the
wild ox strides with long step, and neck
proudly raised, with horns bent threateningly
forward, ears turned back, nostrils dilated :
the muscles tense and swollen, the tail lifted
and falling away in a vigorous curve — all as
nature dictates, yet enhanced by an air of
nobility." If the smooth skin is white, the
horns and hoofs are of a brilliant golden hue :
if the skin is yellow, then both are of malachite-
green, while the mane in each cast- is painted
a deep blue. Of truly noble appearance, how-

1 64.

Babel and Bibl

ever, is a white bull in relief, of which not
merely the horns and hoofs, but the mane as
well, are painted sap-green.

Such is the re cm of the date of Ishtar.
through which the Procession-Street of Marduk
led. a worthy companion to the well-known

Fig. 63. — The wild ox Re'em , relief in enamelled bricks
from Babylon.

-lion of Babylon' 1 (fig. 04). which adorned
that famous street.

And besides this, the German Oriental

Society has also presented Biblical Science
with another animal of the rarest kind, with
a fabulous beast which our religious training

Babel and Bible

165

has made us well acquainted with, and which
must make a fascinating impression on all
who approach the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar
through the Islitar-Ciate— I mean the Dragon
of Babel (fig. 65).

•• With neck extended far forward, and

Fig. 64. — Tho "lion of Babylon."

poison-threatening glance, the monster strides
along '* -it is a serpent, as the long double-
tongued head, the long scaly body, and the
serpentine tail clearly shew ; but it also, at
the same time, possesses the fore-legs of the
panther, while its hind legs are armed with

i66

Babel and Bible

immense talons : and in addition it carries
Long straight horns on the head, and a scorpion-
sting at the end of the tail. 1 All, all be
thanked, who faithfully and truly co-operate
for the acquisition of such choice, and archaeo-
logically all-important, discoveries !

Fig. 65. -The dragon of Babel.

Hut quite apart from many such ex-
planatory and illustrative details. Assyriology
has re-established the credit of* The Tradition
of the Old Testament Text, which has so
long and so fiercely been assailed. For while

1 See NOt<-. p. 221,

Babel and Bible 167

A.ssyriology is itself ever being con Iron ted by
newly-discovered texts of growing difficulty,
lull of rare words and modes of speech, it can
understand that within the Old Testament
Scriptures also there are plenty of words and
expressions that occur but once or rarely; it
rejoices in the fact, and makes it its business
to attempt to explain such from the context,
and, in not a few cases, reaps the reward of
its labour by discovering the occurrence of the
self-same words and phrases in Assyrian. It
perceives in this way how fatal a mistake it has
been for modern exegesis to quibble about such
rare words and difficult passages, to 'emend'
them, and only too often to substitute plati-
tudes. In truth, every friend of the Old
Testament Scriptures should strenuously co-
operate in contributing to help unearth the
thousands of clay-tablets and all the other sorts
of literary monuments which lie buried in
Babylon, and which our Expedition will set to
work to excavate, as soon as the initial tasks
that have been imposed upon it have been

1 68 Babel and Bible

successfully discharged. By so doing, he will
help to promote a more notable and rapid
advance in the Linguistic elucidation of the
( )ld Testament than lias been possible for two
thousand years.

Even whole narratives of the Old Testament
receive their elucidation from Babylon. From
youth we have been burdened bv tradition with
the false notion of a brutalized Nebuchadnezzar,
because the Book of Daniel narrates (eh. iv.
29-37) how the King of Babel wandered about
on the roof of his palace, and. after glorying
again in the majesty of the city he had built,
was the recipient of a prophecy from Heaven
to the effect that he should be driven out from
human society, and should live with and after
the manner of the beasts of the field. There-
upon, we are told. King Nebuchadnezzar did
cit grass in the wilderness like the oxen, wet
with the dew of heaven, while his hair grew
like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds"
claws. Yet no instructor of youth, at least
since the appearance of Eberhard Schrader's

Babel and Bible 169

essay. " Concerning the Madness of Nebuchad-
nezzar," 1 ought ever to have taught this story
without pointing out that the purer and more
original form of it lias long been known to us
in a Chaldsean legend preserved in Abydenus.
This story narrates that Nebuchadnezzar,
having attained the summit of his power,
ascended the roof of the royal castle, and,
inspired by a god. cried out and said: "I,
Nebuchadnezzar (Nabukodrosor), announce to
you the coming of a calamity which neither
Bel nor queen Beltis can persuade the Fates
to avert. There shall come a Persian (i.e.
Cyrus) .... and bring you into slavery.
Would that, before the citizens perish, he
might be hunted through the desert where
neither city nor track of man could be found,
but where rather wild beasts seek their food,
and birds fly : would that among mountain
clefts and gorges he might wander alone.
But as for me .... may I encounter a
happier end." Who could fail to observe here
1 See Note, p, 221,

170 Babel and Bible

that the Hebrew writer lias lively altered the
Babylonian legend, especially since in verse 19

he lets it clearly be seen that he was quite well
acquainted with its original wording! What
Nebuchadnezzar desires for the enemy of the
Chaldeeans, the author of* the- collection of
pamphlets (which abound in mistakes and
omissions 1 embodied in the Hook of Daniel
attributes to the experience of Nebuchadnezzar
himself, in order to bring home by concrete
example, and in the strongest possible manner.
to his countrymen, persecuted by Antiochus
Epiphanes, the truth that the Lord God can
utterly abase even the most powerful king
who resists Yalnve.

When shall we at last learn to distinguish,
within the Old Testament, form from sub-
stance \ There are two profound lessons
that the author of the Book of .Jonah preaches
to ns viz., that no one can escape God, and
thai no mortal may dare attempt to regulate
or even set a limit to God's compassion or
loner-suffering : but the form in which these

Babel and Bible 171

truths are clothed is human, altogether and
fantastically Oriental : and if we at this time
of day were willing to believe that Jonah in
the fishs belly uttered a prayer made up of
a mosaic of Psalm-passages which were com-
posed in part some centuries after the fall of
Nineveh, or that the King of Nineveh's re-
pentance was so profound that he commanded
even the oxen and sheep to clothe themselves
with sackcloth, we should ourselves be sinning
against the intelligence that God has bestowed
upon us. But all such features are mere
details that fade into the background before
the far intenser light.

It was a remarkably happy idea which was
conceived by the representatives of the
governing bodies of the German churches,
who went out to Jerusalem as the Kaiser's
guests to be present at the dedication of
the Church of the Redeemer — the idea of
founding n "German Evangelical Institute
of Archaeology for the Holy Land."'

Oh. may our young theologians there learn

172 Babel and Bible

to acquaint themselves thoroughly— and that

not merely in the towns, but, best of all. in
the desert — with the manners and customs
of the Bedouin, who are still the self-same
people that they were in the time of old
Israel : and may they there deeply immerse
themselves in the points of view and modes
of presentment characteristic of the Orient :
may they listen, in the tents of the desert,
to story-tellers, or hear the descriptions and
narrations of the sons of the desert themselves,
full of vivid and unrestrained, spontaneous
fancy, which all too often unwittingly trans-
gresses the limits of fact ! There will then
be disclosed to them that w r orld from which
alone Oriental works like the Old and (to
some extent also) the New Testament can be
explained — there will fall as it were scales
from their eyes, and the "Midnight Sun v
will be transformed into morning light!

If even the Orient of to-day — w r herever we
go and stay, listen and look — offers such an
1 See Note, p. -.222.

Babel and Bible 173

abundance of elucidatory material for the
Bible, how much more must this be true of
the study of the ancient literature of the
Babylonians and Assyrians, which indeed is
to some extent contemporary with the Old
Testament ! Everywhere we meet with
more or less significant agreements on the
part of the two literatures, which are closely
related in respect of language and style,
thought and modes of presentment. I
call to mind the sacred character of the
numbers seven and three, to which both
testify. "O Land, Land, Land, hear the
word of Yahwe," cries Jeremiah (ch. xxii.
21)); "Hail, hail, hail to the King, my
Lord " is the formula with which more than
one Assyrian scribe begins his letter. And
just as the Seraphim before God's Throne cry,
one to the other : " Holy, holy, holy is Yahwe
Sabaoth " (Is. vi. 3), so we read at the begin-
ning of the Assyrian Temple-liturgies a thrice-
repeated astir, i.e., ' Salvation-bringing ' or
' holy/ According to Babylonian ideas magic

174 Babel and Bible

power belongs in a special degree to human
spittle. Spittle and magic form closely con-
nected ideas, and in tact spittle was regarded
as possessing death-bringing as well as lit'c-
bestowing force. "O Marduk!" runs a
petition in a prayer to the city-deity of Babel
-" () Marduk ! To thee belongs the spittle of
lite!" Who can tail in such a connection to
recall New Testament accounts such as that
which narrates that Jesus took the deal' and
dumb man aside, put his fingers into his ears,
spat, and with the spittle touched his tongue,
and said : " Ephphatha" " Be thou opened ! "
( Mark vii. 33 sqq. : cf. viii. 2.'i : John i.\. (J sqq.)
With a pillar of smoke by day. and a pillar of
fire by night. Yahwe accompanied his people on
the journey through the desert : but to Esar-
haddon also, the King of Assyria, there is
given, before his departure for the war, the
prophetic assurance: "I, Ishtar of Arbela.
will make to ascend on thy right hand smoke,
and on thy left hand tire." "Set thy house
in order" says the prophet Isaiah to King

Babel and Bible 175

Hezekiah, who is sick unto death — "because
thou art dead, and shaft not live" (Is. xxxviii.
1 ) : and the Assyrian general Kudurru, to
whom the King despatches His Majesty's
physician-in-ordinary, thanks his King with the
words: " I was dead, but the King, my Lord,
lias made me live" (K. 81, 12). The soul
of one who is sick unto death dwells already
in the under-world, has journeyed already
down to the grave (Ps. xxx. 3). Therefore
the goddess Gula, the patroness of physicians,
hears the title of " Awakener of the Dead :
an Oriental physician, who did not awaken
the dead, would be regarded as no phy-
sician. How utterly alike everything is in
Babylon and Bible! Here as there we are
struck by the fondness shewn for illustrat-
ing speech and thought by symbolic action
(1 call to mind the scapegoat which was
driven into the wilderness): here as there
we meet with the same world of perpetual
wonders and signs : of continuous revelation,
principally in dreams: the same naive repre-

176 Babel and Bible

sentations of the godhead ; just as in Babylon
the gods eat and drink, and even betake them-
selves to rest, so Yahwe goes forth in the cool
of the evening to walk in Paradise, and takes
pleasure in the sweet scent of Noah's sacrifice;
and just as in the Old Testament Yahwe speaks
to Moses and Aaron, and to all the prophets,
so the gods in Babylon spoke to men. either
directly or through the month of their priests
and inspired prophets and prophetesses.

Revelation indeed ! A greater mistake on
the part of the human mind can hardly be
conceived than this, that for long centuries the
priceless remains of the old Hebrew literature
collected in the Old Testament were regarded
collectively as a religious canon, a revealed
book of religion, in spite- of the tact that it
includes such literature as the Hook of Job,
which, with words that in places border on
blasphemy, casts doubts on the very existence
of a just (.<>d. together with absolutely secular
productions, such as wedding songs (the so-
called Song of Solomon). In the charming

Babel and Bible 177

love-song, Ps. xlv., we read, vv. 11 sqq. :
'• Hearken, O daughter, and attend, and
incline thine ear, and forget thine own people
and thy father's house; and should the king
long for thy beauty, for he is thy lord, then
prostrate thyself before him."

The thought may suggest itself, what must
have been the result when books and passages
like these were interpreted theologically, and
even messianically (cf. Ep. to Hebrews i. 8 sq.) ?
It can hardly have been otherwise than
with the mediaeval Catholic monk, who, if he
met with the Latin word maria, 'seas,' while
reading in the Psalter, crossed himself in
honour of the Virgin Mary. But even for the
remaining portions of the Old Testament
literature, all scientifically trained theologians,
Evangelical as well as Catholic, have aban-
doned the doctrine of verbal inspiration: the
Old Testament is itself responsible for this,
with its numberless contradictory double nar-
ratives, and with the absolutely inextricable
confusion that has arisen in the five books

178 Babel and Bible

of Moses, through constant revision and inter-
change.

To be quite frank, beyond the revelation of
God that we, each one of ns. carry in our own
conscience, we have certainly not deserved a
further personal Divine revelation. For up to
this dav mankind has absolutely trifled with
the original and most special revelation of the
holy God, the ten words written on the Tables
of the Law from Sinai. "The Word ye shall
let stand": in spite of this, in I)r Martin
Luther's Small Catechism, according to which
our children are instructed, the whole of the
second commandment : " Thou shaft not make
to thyself any image or likeness." has been sup-
pressed, and in place of it the last command-
ment, or rather negative command, concerning
the so-called evil desire has been severed into
two parts, a division which could easily be seen
to be inadmissible from a comparison of Exodus
XX. 1 7 and Dent. v. 18. Thus the command-
ment to honour father and mother is made to
be not the fourth, but the fifth, and so on.

Babel and Bible 179

And in the Roman Catholic catechism, which
has exactly the same numeration of the Ten
Commandments, the first commandment ap-
peals in an expanded form, and runs thus :
" Thou shalt have no strange gods beside me ;
thon shalt not make to thyself any graven
image to worship it"; but immediately after this
it is added : Images of Christ, of the Mother
of God, and of all Saints we nevertheless make,
because we do not worship, but only honour
them— in which connection it lias been over-
looked that the Lord God says expressly :
Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven
image to worship and to honour it. (See also
Dent. iv. 1G.)

But the ease is even worse if, for the time
being, we assume the standpoint of the strict
letter of the law ; for then Moses himself will
have to bear the terrible reproach — a reproach
ascending in one unanimous shriek from all
peoples of the earth, who ask and seek after
God. Let it be remembered, it is Almighty
God, "the All-embracing, All-sustaining," the

180 Babel and Bible

[nvisible, the Unapproachable One. who. amid
thunder and lightning, from the midst of cloud
and fire, announces I lis most holy will; Yahwe,

" the Hock whose deeds are perfect " (Deut.
wxii. 4). it is who chisels with His own hands
two tables of stone and engraves on them with
His own finffers, which hold the world in
equilibrium, the Ten Commandments then
.Moses in a fit of aimer hurls the eternal tables
of the eternal God from him. and shivers them
into a thousand fragments. Further, this Cod
writes a second time other tables which set
forth His first and last autograph revelation to
mankind. Gods unique palpable revelation,
and Moses does not think it worth while to
impart to his people, and thereby to mankind.
a literal and exact account of what God en-
graved on those tables.

We scholars would count it a grave reproach
to any one of ourselves to render falsely or
inaccurately, even in a single letter, the in-
scription of any one. even a herdsman, who
had perpetuated his name on a stone of the

Babel and Bible 181

Sinaitic peninsula ; but Moses, when lie onee
more, before the crossing of the Jordan, incul-
cates the Ten Commandments to his people,
not only changes individual words, transposes
words and clauses and more of the like, but
even replaces one long passage by another,
although he emphatically and expressly asserts
that this also corresponds to the very letter of
God's words. And so to this day we know
not whether God commanded the Sabbath
Day to be hallowed in remembrance of I lis
own rest after the six days' work of creation
(Ex. xx. 11 ; cf. xxxi. 17). or as a memorial
of the unending compulsory labour of the
people during their sojourn in Egypt (Deut.
v. 14 sq. ). And the same remissness in regard
to God\s most holy testament to men is also
to be deplored in other respects. We are still
seeking for the mountain in the Sinai range
which corresponds in all respects with what the
account tells us: and while we are most fully
informed about numberless trifling details, such
as. for example, the rings and rods of the chest

1 82 Babel and Bible

which served to protect the two tables, -with
regard to their external appearance and char-
acter, apart Prom the fact that they had writing

on botli sides, we learn nothing whatever.

When the Philistines capture the Ark of
the Covenant and bring it into the temple of
Dagon at Ashdod, on the very next morning
the image of the god Dagon lies shattered
before the Ark of Yahwe (1 Sam. v. sqg.).
When after this it is brought to the little
Jewish frontier hamlet of Beth-Shemesh, and
the inhabitants peep at it. seventy — according
to another account 50,000 (!) men pay the
penalty with death (1 Sam. vi. 1<)). Even one
who touches the Ark by mistake is slain by
Yahwe's wrath (2 Sam. \ i. 7 sq.). As soon.
however, as we set foot on the firm ground of
historical times, history is silent. We are in-
formed in minute- detail that the Chaldaeans
carried oil' the Temple treasures of Jerusalem,
and the gold, silver, and copper \cssels of the
Temple, the hasins and howls and shovels
(2 Kings xxiv. 13, xxv. L3 sijtj. ). but for the

Babel and Bible 183

Ark, with the two divine Tables, nobody in-
quires ; the Temple perishes in flames, but to
the fate of the two wonder-working Tables of
Almighty God — of this greatest of the sacred
possessions of the Old Covenant — there is
devoted not a single word.

We will not stop to investigate the cause of
all this, but will only point out that Moses
is acquitted by Pentateuchal criticism of the
reproach which, according to the strict letter
of the law, lies upon him. For, as, in com-
pany with many other scholars, Dillmann
(Kommentar zu dot Bilchern Exodus und
Leviticus, p. 201) — who is esteemed as an
authority even on the Catholic side — clearly
establishes, the Ten Commandments lie before
us in two different Recensions, which do not
go back immediately to the tables but to other
and distinct categories. And in the same way
also all the other so-called Mosaic laws have
been handed down to us in two relatively
late Recensions, which for centuries existed
independently in distinct forms: and by this

[84 Babel and Bible

means all differences receive their explanation
easily enough. Moreover, we also know tins,
that the so-called Mosaic laws, institutions, and
customs exhibit those elements which partly
from a long antiquity possessed validity among
the Children of Israel, but partly also only
secured valid recognition after the settlement
of the people in Canaan, and were then referred
back en bloc to Moses, and. with a view to
enhancing their sacred character and inviol-
ability, to Yahwe himself, as the supreme Law-
giver. We observe exactly the same process
at work in the laws of other old peoples -I
recall, at the moment, the law-hook of Maim
—and the case is exactly the same with the
<_;i\ ing of the law among the Babylonians.

When, last year. I had the honour of speak-
ing in this place, I pointed out that we find a
highly-developed organization of law already
in existence in Babylonia about 22.50 B.C., 1 and
I spoke of a great collection of laws of Ham-
murabi, which determines the civil law in all

1 Sec p. 35.

Babel and Bible 185

its departments. What could then only be
inferred from scattered though unmistakable
details — viz., the existence of such a code — lias
now been demonstrated by the discovery of
Hammurabi's o-reat Law-Hook in the original ;
and by this great find science, and particularly
the history of culture, and comparative juris-
prudence, have been enriched with a treasure
of the utmost value. It was among the ruins
of the Acropolis of Susa that at the end
of the year 1901 and the beginning of 1002
the French archaeologist de Morgan and the
Dominican monk Scheil had the good fortune
to find a diorite block of King Hammurabi,
'1\ metres high, which had obviously been
carried off with other war-booty from Babylon
by the Elamites ; and on it were found
engraved, in the most careful manner. 282
paragraphs of laws (fig. 66). They consist, as
the King himself says, of" Laws of righteous-
ness, which Hammurabi, the mighty and just
King, has established for the advantage and
benefit of the weak and oppressed, the widows

i86

Babel and Bible

Babel and Bible 187

and orphans." " Let the wronged," we read,
** who lias a lawsuit, read this my written
monument, and examine my precious words ;
let my written monument explain to him the
position of the law, and let him see the decision
of it ! With heart breathing freely again, let
him then exclaim: 'Hammurabi is a Lord
who is like a just father to his people.'

Init though the King says that he, the Sun
of Babylon, the Light streaming over south
and north of his land, has written down these
laws, yet he, on his part, has received them
from the supreme Judge of Heaven and
Earth, the Possessor of everything that is just
and right, the Sun-god ; and therefore the
mighty Law-Stone bears on its summit the
beautiful bas-relief (fig. 67) showing Ham-
murabi as lie receives the revelation of the
laws from Shamash, the supreme Law-giver.

With the giving of the Law from Sinai.
the conclusion of a so-called covenant by

Yahwewith Israel, it is in no respeel different.

In spite of this sacrosanct bond the purely

i88

Babel and Bible

human origin and character of the Esraelitish
Law is sufficiently obvious! Or, would any
one have the temerity to assert that the thrice-
holy God, who with his own fingers engraved

on the table of stone the words 16 tiktdl,

Fig. ij?.- — Hammurabi receiving the Laws From the Sun-god,

"Thou shalt not kill."' could in the very same
breath have sanctioned Blood-Revenge, which
to this day lies like a curse on the peoples
of the East, especially as Hammurabi had
already "almost wholly eradicated all traces

Babel and Bible 189

of it " ? Or, would any one be found ready to
cling to the notion that circumcision, which
has been customary from ancient times among
the Egyptians and Arabian Bedouin, is the
sign of a special covenant of God with Israel?
In accordance with Oriental modes of thought
and speech, we can very well understand the
fact that the numerous prescriptions for all
possible — even the minutest — events of daily
life (as, for instance, in the case when a
vicious ox gores a human being, or another
ox, to death: Exodus xxi. 28 sq.. 35 syy.), the
dietary laws, the minute medical regulations
governing diseases of the skin, the directions
respecting the priestly wardrobe, were repre-
sented as proceeding from Yahwe himself;
but all this is purely external setting — the
God to whom the most acceptable sacrifices
are " a broken spirit, a broken and contrite
heart' (Ps. li. 17), and who took no delight
in a sacrificial worship after the manner of
the "heathen' peoples (Ps. \1. (1). is certainly
not to be credited with having devised recipes

1 90 Babel and Bible

tor anointing-oil and frankincense, " after the
art of the perfumer," as the expression runs

(Exod. xx\. 2.5. :J.5). It will be a matter for
future investigation to determine how far the
[sraelitish laws — civil as well as priestly — are
specifically 1 sraelitish or are common to
Semitic races generally, or whether they have
been influenced by the far older Babylonian
legislation, which certainly had spread beyond
the boundaries of Babylonia itself. I call to
mind, for example, the lex talioms — eye for
eye, tooth for tooth — the festivals of the new
moon, the ' shew-bread,' so-called, the High
Priest's breast-plate, and many other features.
Meanwhile we should be thankful that it
has been recognised that the institution of the
Sabbath Day, the origin of which was obscure
even to the Hebrews, has its roots in the
Babylonian Sabattu, the ' Day" par excellence.
On the other hand, nobody asserts that the
Ten Commandments were borrowed, even
partially, from Babylonia ; stress rather is Laid
on pointing out that such Commandments as

Babel and Bible 191

the fifth, sixth, and seventh owe their origin to
an instinct of self-preservation common to the
human race. As a matter of fact, the majority
of the Ten Commandments were as sacred to
the Babylonians as to the Hebrews : disrespect
shewn towards parents, false witness, any and
every attempt to secure other people's pro-
perty, were, according to Babylonian custom,
sternly punished, for the most part with death.
So, for example, we read as third paragraph of
Hammurabi's Law-Book : " If any one in a
law-suit makes lying depositions, and cannot
prove his assertions, he shall, if thereby the
life of another is endangered, be punished with
death." Quite specifically Israelitish is the
second Commandment, the prohibition of
every form of image-worship whatever, which
seems to have a directly anti-Babylonian
point. In coming to the consideration of
the first Commandment so thoroughly

Israelitish in character: — " 1 am Yahwe, thy
God, thou shaft have none other Gods beside
me," I may be permitted to approach more

1 9^ Babel and Bible

closely a point about which all who interest
themselves in the problems of Babel and
Bible manifest a persistent and profound con-
cern — I mean the question of Old Testament

Monotheism. It is, after all. quite compre-
hensible, from the standpoint of Old Testa-
ment Theology, that after having unanimously
abandoned — and rightly so -the doctrine of
the verbal inspiration of the Old Hebrew
Writings, and after acknowledging (albeit
unwillingly, yet quite consistently) the
absolutely non-binding character of the Old
Testament Scriptures as such upon our faith,
knowledge, and recognition, it should now
claim that their pervading spirit is divine, and.
with so much the greater insistence, should
emphasize the ethical monotheism of Israel,
the "spirit of the prophets.*' as being "a real
revelation of the living God."

The effect of the proper names, enumerated
in mv last years lecture, 1 which we find to
have been current in immensely large numbers

1 See p. 7 •'.

Babel and Bible 193

among the North Semitic Nomads, who, about

2500 J5.c, had wandered into Babylonia, has

proved quite startling — names such as " El,

i.e. God, has given," " God sits enthroned in

power," " If God be not my God," " God !

behold me!" " God is God," " Jahu (i.e. Jahve)

is God." The uneasiness produced by this

catalogue is really not quite comprehensible.

Since the Old Testament itself already allows

Abraham to preach in Jahve's name (Gen. xii.

8), and Jahve is already the God of Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob, such old names as Jaku-ilu,

i.e. Joel, should really be hailed with joy.

And more particularly in the case of those

theologians who claim to be positive, who

allow that " all divine revelation develops,

stage by stage, historically" — thereby, as it

seems to me, entirely contradicting the Church's

idea of revelation — should the advent of these

names be opportune. Meanwhile the great

majority of theologians have an uneasy feeling.

and with reason, that these names, which are

something like a thousand years or more

19+ Babel and Bible

older than the corresponding Old Testament
names, and which testify to the worship of
only one God (whether tribal god or otherwise
is a matter of opinion) named Jahn. "the
Abiding One." may involve the transference
of the starting-point for the historical develop-
ment of Jahve-religion to very much wider
circles than those having a special place within
the ranks of Abram's descendants, thereby,
however, gravely endangering its character as
a revelation. And therefore no efforts, no
pains are spared to explain these names away,
no means being rejected for this end — but
even though the waves sputter and foam, the
names of the descendants of the North Semitic
Bedouin, dating from circa 2300 B.C., remain,
like a lighthouse in a dark night, firm and im-
movable : " God is God," " Jahu is God."

It seems to me that, hoth on the one side
and the other, people need to he on their
guard against exaggeration. For my own
part, I have never failed to emphasize the
'coarseness" of the polytheism of the Baby-

Babel and Bible 195

Lonians, and I do not feel myself constrained
in the least to palliate it. Only, I regard the
Sumerian-Babylonian Pantheon and its repre-
sentation in poetry (especially in popular
poetry) as quite as little suited to he the butt
of shallow criticisms and mocking exaggerations
as the Homeric gods, similar ridicule of whom
would he properly condemned. Nor should
the worship of the deities under forms of stone
and wood be in any way extenuated. Only, it
should never be forgotten that even according to
the biblical account of creation, man is created
in the very image of God ; and this feature, as
has rightly been emphasized already from the
theological side, directly contradicts the other
aspect of (iod which is repeatedly laid stress
upon — His immateriality.

So it is. after all, not altogether incompre-
hensible if the Babylonians, reversing the pro-
cess, set forth and represented their gods in
human likeness. The Old Testament prophets
do exactly the same thing, at least in the
spirit. In complete agreement with Baby-

ic)6

Babel and Bible

Ionian and Assyrian representations, the pro-
phet Habakkuk (ch. iii.) sees Yahw& approach
with horses and chariots, bow and arrows, and
lance, and even (ver. 4) " horns at His side"
yes,| with horns, the symbol of supremacy,

Fig. 68. — Assyrian t;t><l with "horns at its side."

strength, and victory (Amos vi. 13; cf. Numb.

xxiii. 22). the usual decoration of the
head-covering (fig. (*>8) of the Babylonian-
Assyrian gods, both high and low. The
representations of God the Father in Christian
Art : in the case of .Michael Angelo, Raphael,

Babel and Bible

197

in all our picture Bibles — the accompanying
representation (fig. (59) of the fourth day of
creation is taken from that by Julius v. Schnorr
all go back to a vision of Daniel (vii. 9), who
beholds God as an "Ancient of Days, His

Fig. 69. — The fourth day of creation (after Julius von Schnorr).

raiment white like snow, and the hair of His
head like pure wool." But the wearisome satire
poured by the Old Testament prophets on the
Babylonian idols — who have eyes and see not,
ears and hear not, a nose and smell not, feet

1 98 Babel and Bible

and move not can be endured as easily by the
Babylonians as by the Roman Catholic Church.
For exactly as thinking Catholics generally
regard the figures simply as representing Christ,
Mary, and the Saints, so thinking Babylonians
did the same : there was no hymn, no prayer
that would he directed to the image as such
they are always addressed to the deity en-
throned beyond all that is earthly.

Further, in estimating the "Ethical Mono-
theism" of Israel a certain moderation is
desirable. First of all. the pre-Exilic period,
during which Judah as well as Israel, kings as
well as people, were the victims of a tendency
towards the polytheism of heathen Canaan, as
persistent as it was natural, must to a large
extent he excepted. That being so. however,
it appears to me a particularly unfortunate
proceeding when certain over-zealous spirits
represent the ethical level of Israel, even the
Israel of the prc-Kxilic period, as so vastly
superior to that of the Babylonians. It is
true the Babylonian-Assyrian method of

Babel and Bible 199

waging war was cruel, sometimes even
barbarous. But the conquest of Canaan by
the Hebrew tribes was also accompanied by
the shedding of streams of innocent blood ; the
capture of "the great and goodly cities not
their own, of the houses full of all good things,
of the wells, vineyards, olive-trees" (Deut. vi.
10 sq.), was preceded by the 'devoting' of
hundreds of places both east and west of the
Jordan, which means the ruthless massacre of
all the inhabitants, even of the women, little
children, and infants. As regards justice and
righteousness in state and people, the ceaseless
denunciations by the prophets of Israel and
Judah of the oppression of the poor, of widows
and orphans, in conjunction with such accounts
as that of Naboth's vineyard (1 Kings xxi.),
afford us a glimpse of grave corruption on the
part of kings and people alike, while the
continuance of Hammurabi's kingdom for well-
nigh two thousand years might well serve to
justify the application to it of the words :
" Righteousness exalts a nation."

200 Babel and Bible

We still possess a tablet which, in most
forcible Language, warns the Babylonian. King
himself against any form of injustice. " It'
the King receives money from the inhabitants
of Babylon, to augment his treasury, and then
hears lawsuits by Babylonians, and permits
himself to be partial in decision, then will
Marduk, Lord of Heaven and earth, raise up
his enemy against him, and will give his
possessions and treasure to his foe." Further,
in the chapter concerning love of neighbours,
the place of compassion in dealing witli
neighbours, there is, as has once already been
observed, no impassable gulf discoverable
between Babylon and the Old Testament.
One point illustrating this may be noted in
passing. Over the Babylonian Flood-narra-
tive, with its polytheistic features, Old Testa-
ment theologians make very merry, yet it
contains one feature which makes it appeal to
us with Car greater force than the Biblical
narrative. " The Storm-Mood " -so Xisuthros
narrates — "came to an end. I looked out

Babel and Bible 201

over the wide sen, shrieking aloud, because
every human being hud perished." As
Eduard Suess, the renowned Austrian geologist,
acknowledges, it is in such features as these
that " the simple narrative of Xisuthros bears
the stamp of convincing truth." Of any feel-
ing of compassion on the part of Noah we
read nothing. The Babylonian Noah was
with his wife given a place among the gods—
and such an idea would be inconceivable in the
case of Israel.

Of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Har-
vest-Festival, it is said in Dent. xvi. 11 (cf. xii.
18) : " And thou shalt be joyful before Yah we,
thy God, thou and thy son and thy daughter,
and thy man-servant and thy maid-servant "
what has become of the wife \ The position of
woman in Israel was admittedly an inferior
one from childhood onwards. We know
hardly a single girl's name from the Old
Testament which testifies whole - heartedly
to any such feeling of grateful joy to Yah we
for the child's birth as is the case in regard

202 Babel and Bible

to hoys: all such endearing designations of
oirls as 'Beloved,' 'Fragrant,' 'Dew-born,'
'Bee,' 'Gazelle,' -Ewe" (Rachel), 'Myrtle'

and • Palm." "Coral" and * Coronet, arc. in
my opinion, (juite insufficient to deceive us
in regard to the matter. The woman is the
property of her parents, and. later on. of her
husband : she is a valuable element for pur-
poses of work, on whom, in married life, a
large part of the hardest business of the home
is imposed -above all. she is. as in Islam.
incompetent to take pail in the practice of
the cultus. In the ease of the Babylonians
all this was managed differently and better;
we read, for example, of women in Ham-
murabi's time who were allowed to carry their
stools into the Temple: we find the names
of women as witnesses to Legal documents,
and more of the like. It is just in the
domain of questions concerning women that
it can clearly he seen how profoundly
Babylonian culture had been influenced by
the non-Semitic civilization of the Sumerians.

Babel and Bible 205

ment scholar, 1 on the strength of a passage in
a Babylonian poem, the meaning of which is
still far from having been certainly deter-
mined, moved by similar moral indignation,
cries out that "the lowest corners of hither
Asia must be searched through to find analogies
for it," I, for my part, though indeed unable to
adduce equal local knowledge, may, however,
venture to remind him of the "rounds on which
our school authorities have so stringently in-
sisted upon selections from the Old Testament,
and warn him, when he throws stones, to be
careful that his own glass-house does not come
tumbling down with a sudden crash.

But immeasurably more important than this
skirmishing — which my opponents have pro-
voked — about the relative moral standard of
the two peoples, is, it seems to me, one final
consideration which has not, in my opinion,
received the attention it deserves in the
preaching of the " ethical monotheism " of
Israel, or of the "spirit of prophecy" as a
" real revelation of the living God."
1 See Note, p. 223,

206 Babel and Bible

Five times a day. and even oftener, docs the
pious Moslem pray Islam's pater-noster, the
first sura of the Koran, which closes with the
words: "Direct us (Allah) in the right way.
in the way of those to whom Thou hast been
gracious, who are not struck by (Thy) anger
[as the Jews], and do not go astray [as the
Christians]." The Moslem alone is the one
to whom Allah has been gracious, he alone has
been chosen by God to worship and honour
the true God — all the rest of men and nations
are Kdjiri'in. unbelievers, whom God has not
predestined to eternal salvation. Exactly thus
and no otherwise, ranging itself in this respect
with a sentiment deeply implanted in the
Semitic character, does the Yahwism of Israel
appear in the pre-Exilic as well as the post-
Exilic period. Yah we is the only true (or
supreme) God, but at the same time He is the
God of Israel alone, exclusively; Israel is His
chosen people and his inheritance, all other
peoples arc (rot///// or Heathen, given up by
Yahwe himself to godlcssness and idolatry.

Babel and Bible 207

That is a doctrine in any case utterly repug-
nant to our more purified ideas of God. It
lias been expressed, however, in the plainest
words in a passage which at one blow
annihilates the phantom of an ' original revela-
tion' — the 19th verse of the 4th chapter of
the Book of Deuteronomy : " Lest thou
direct thine eyes heavenwards, and see the sun
and the moon and the stars, the whole host of
heaven, and worship and honour them, which
Yahwe thy God has divided unto all peoples
under the whole heaven ; but you Yahwe has
taken and brought forth out of Egypt to be
unto Him a people of inheritance."

The star- and idol-worship of the peoples
under the whole heaven has, according to this,
been willed and ordained by Yahwe Himself.
So much the more terrible, then, is Yahwe s
command, given in Dent. vii. 2, to exterminate
without mercy, on account of their godlessness,
powerful nations which Israel should find in
Canaan, as it is said in verse 16 : "And thou
shaft consume all the peoples, which Yahwe

2o8 Babel and Bible

thy Cod gives to thee; thine eye shall not
spare them." This national, particularistic

monotheism, which naturally cannot assert
itself in sections like the creation-narrative,
hut which elsewhere undeniably pervades the
whole of the Old Testament, from Sinai on-
wards I am Yahwc. thy God — up to the
second Isaiah's •■Comfort ye, comfort ye. my
people," and to Zechariah's prophetic utter-
ance (viii. '2'U : "Thus saith Yahwc Sabaoth:
In those days it comes to pass that ten men
out of all the tongues of the nations {Groyim)
shall clutch hold of the skirt of a Jew. saying :
• Let us go with you. for we have heard Cod is
with you ! this monotheism which, as even
Paul for instance admits (Ephes. ii. 11 sq.),
allowed all the other peoples of the earth
through thousands of years to be "without
hope" and "without Cod in the world" it
is difficult to regard this. I say. as 'revealed'
by the holy and just Cod! And yet we are
all from early youth so overpowered by this
doffma of "aliens from the commonwealth of

Babel and Bible 209

Israel" (Eph. ii. 12), that we regard the his-
tory of the ancient world from an altogether
distorted historical point of view, and even yet
are content with the role of the * spiritual
Israel/ In so doing, we forget the mighty
historical revolution which was accomplished
in New Testament times, beginning with the
preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus — that
dramatic conflict between Judaism, Jewish and
non-Jewish Christianity, which lasted until
Peter was able to exclaim (Acts x. 34 sq.) : " In
truth I perceive that God is no respecter of
persons, but whoever in any nation fears Him
and practises righteousness, is acceptable to
Him," thereby breaking down, once for all, the
partition- wall between the Oriental- 1 sraelitish
and Christian philosophical views.

For my own part, I live in the faith that the
old Hebrew Scriptures, even if they lose their
character as writings ' revealed ' or pervaded
by a spirit of 'revelation,' will yet always
retain their high importance, especially as a

unique monument of a vast religious, historical

2io Babel and Bible

process which readies to our own time. Those
exalted passages in the prophets and psalms,
inspired by vivid trust in God, and Longing
after peace in God, will always find a ready
echo in our hearts, in spite of the particularistic
limitations of their strict letter and literal sense
although this has to a large extent been
obliterated in our translations of the Bible.
Such words as those of the prophet Micah
(vi. 6-8) : " Wherewith shall 1 come before
Yahwe, to how myself before God on high \
Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings,
with calves of a year old \ Has Yahwe pleasure
in thousands of rams, in countless streams of
«»il \ Shall I give my firstborn as expiation,
the fruit of my body as atonement for ni\
life : He hath showed thee. () man. what is
good, and what Yahwe requires of thee :
nothing but to do justly, to cultivate loving-
kindness, and to walk humbly before thy
God' words so cogent for the moral prac-
tice of religion (they are also found in Baby-
lonian literature) — are still to-day uttered

Babel and Bible

211

from the soul of all religiously thinking
people.

But, on the other hand, let us not cling
blindly to outworn dogmas, which scientific
knowledge has overthrown, even from an
anxious fear lest our faith in God and true
religiousness may suffer harm at its hands.
We reflect that everything earthly is in a state
of vital flow; to stand still is synonymous
with death. We see the mighty throbbing
power, with which the Reformation infused
great nations of the earth, in all departments
of human activity and human progress. Hut
even the Reformation is only a stage on the
road to the goal of Truth, which has been set
before us by and in God. To attain that, we
strive humbly, yet with all the means of free
scientific investigation, joyfully confessing as
the object of our devotion — seen from the high
watch-tower with eagle glance, and proudly
announced to all the world — the emancipation
of religious development.

Notes

LECTURE II

The foregoing Lecture was delivered on the
L2th of January 1903 in the Academy of Music
a1 Berlin before the German Oriental Society.
in the presence of I lis Majesty the Kaiser
and King, and of Her Majesty the Kaiserin
and Queen. That this second lecture on
"Babel and the Bible" should also be given
before the German Oriental Society I owed
to it as well as to myself, on account of the
varied expressions of dissent which the first
Lecture called forth during my seventeen
weeks' stay in Assyro- Babylonia. 1

That the German Oriental Society lias not
the least concern with my personal religious

1 I arrived al Mosul, 27th April ; departed from Bassorah,
23rd August [902.

•212

Notes 213

views, although it should have been obvious, has
been emphasized in the new edition of my first
Lecture (p. 89), and, as far as I am concerned,
will secure even more decided expression.

It is my most firm conviction that, if only
a little judgment be used, it will no longer be
possible for the opening up of these theological
or religions-historical questions to be considered
injurious or even insulting to Judaism, least of
all to the modern Jewish faith. Dispassionate,
strictly objective discussion of the origin of
the institution of the Sabbath, of the position
of woman in Israel as well as in Babylonia,
and of other related questions, can only make
our judgment keener, only serve to further the
cause of truth. In this way that unanimity
regarding the value of Old Testament mono-
theism, which for the time-being is far to seek
in even the Jewish cam]) proper, will gradually
but surely be attained. As opposed to the
alleged universalism of the Old Testament
belief in God — though it has been supposed to
be proved in more than one 'open letter' by

2 1 4 Babel and Bible

Scriptural passages other voices of Israelites.
possessing a knowledge of the world as wel] as
of the Bible, have made themselves heard, of
such significant import as is expressed in the
following words, extracted from a private letter
of the 14th January 1903: "Your assertion
that Jewish monotheism is of an exclusive
character, in an egotistic and particularistic
sense, is irrefiitable; equally irrefutable, how-
ever, is it. in my opinion, that it is this abso-
lutely particularistic monotheism alone thai has
made it possible for Judaism to maintain itself
for thousands of years in the midst of persecu-
tions and enmity of all kinds. Looked at
from the Jewish standpoint, the national theism
has brilliantly justified itself: to give it up
means to give up Judaism : and even if there
is much to be said in favour of this course.
there is still a great deal to be said against it."
Regarding the divine character of the Torah,
indeed, this must be excluded from scientific
discussion, at least so long as complete ignor-
ance of the results of lVntatcuch-eritieisin

Notes 2 1 5

is regarded on the Jewish side as ' exact
science/ and (correspond inn- to this) so long as
a discussion of " Babel and the Bible," founded
on such ignorance, is disseminated far and wide
through the magazines as ' scientific criticism.'
The really abysmal obscurity, incompleteness,
discord — to say nothing of more deplorable
features — disclosed by the attitude taken up
by evangelical orthodoxy towards the questions
raised by " Babylon and the Bible," fills me,
who myself am sprung from a strictly orthodox
Lutheran house, with deep pain. From all
sides and quarters I am assailed with the cry
that I have said ' nothing essentially new '—
whence, then, I ask, this excessive commotion ?
And while from Aix - la - Chapelle deep
lamentation and bitter accusation of Assyri-
ology is heard because " in the lecture Old
Testament traditions are, without further
proof, arbitrarily represented as borrowed from
Babylonian myths, such, for instance, as that
of Nebuchadnezzar's madness,*' in the columns
of a journal of middle Germany an 'orthodox

2 i 6 Babel and Bible

pastor' exclaims, "I am fighting against a
blind foe," because the historical books of the
Bible, as a matter of tact, contained "neither
the story of Balaam's ass. nor of the sun
standing still, nor of the tall of the walls of
Jericho, nor of the fish which swallows Jonah,
nor of Nebuchadnezzar's madness — all of them
accounts whose historical trustworthiness may
well be contested even according to orthodox
views." So that even evangelical orthodoxy
sets aside 'revelations' which seem to it no
longer in accord with the spirit of the age:
will it not once for all condescend to an open
confession, and explain without equivocation
what hooks and narratives it thinks proper
t«. strike out from -Holy Scripture'?

One of the first and most meritorious of so-
calicd positive investigators in the domain of
the Old Testament, Professor Ernst Scllin
of Vienna, in his "Notes on Babel <tn<l
tin nililc" fin the Neue Freie Prcs.se of
January 25, L903) on the one hand cheer-
fully acknowledges the "absolutely incalculable

Notes 217

amount of help, elucidation, and correction
that Old Testament investigation owes to the
decipherment of the Babylonian inscriptions,
in the matter of grammar and lexicography,
as well as in the history of culture and pure
history," yet, on the other, he is of opinion that
I, when I " argue against the fact of a divine
revelation in the Bible on the strength of the
Song of Songs and of growth of tradition out
of material derived from heterogeneous sources,
have appeared on the scene exactly a hundred
years too late." Such a statement as this last
can only be described as one of the grossest
exaggerations that could possibly have been
uttered. When my dear father, Franz
Delitzsch, saw himself compelled, towards the
end of his life, by the weight of the facts of
Old Testament textual criticism, to make, in
the case of Genesis, the smallest possible con-
cessions, he was persecuted, even on his death-
bed (181)0). by the warnings of whole synods.
The prodigious commotion, again, excited by
my second Lecture serves to show convincingly

218 Babel and Bible

enough that in quarters from which Church
and school are governed an essentially different
view from that of my highly-esteemed critic
prevails.

Every individual clergyman, who has been a
diligent student at the university, does, it is
true, pay homage to freer views, but, all the
same-, school-teaching and religious instruction
remain unaffected, and this is the almost in-
tolerable discord against which page .5 of m\
first Lecture is directed. And this discord
widens ever more profoundly. When, indeed,
one of* equally honourable theological ante-
cedents writes (26th January L903) : "You
inveigh against a conception of Revelation
that no sensible Protestant any Longer shares:
it was that of the old Lutheran Dogmatists.
. . . All divine revelation is. of course, subject
to human mediation, and must therefore have
been developed by a gradual process, histori-
cally." he describes exactly the standpoint that
I myself advocate, only thai I regard the con-
ception of • divine revelation' in the sens'

Notes 219

held by the Church and " of (a human) de-
velopment by a gradual process historically '
as the most opposed and absolutely irreconcil-
able ideas imaginable. Let it be one thing or
the other ! / believe that in the Old Testa-
ment we have to deal with a process of develop-
ment effected or permitted by God like any
other earthly product, but, for the rest, of a
purely human and historical character, in which
God has not intervened through ' special, super-
natural revelation.' Old Testament mono-
theism plainly shows itself to be such a process
marked by progress from the incomplete to the
complete, from the false to the more true, here
and there indeed by occasional retrogression,
and it seems to me inconceivable to see at each
single stage of this development a ' revelation'
of the absolute, complete Truth, which is God.
The attenuation of the original idea of revela-
tion — so deeply rooted in ancient Oriental
conceptions which began with the abandon-
ment of verbal inspiration on the part of the
evangelical as well as of Catholic theology, and

220 Babel and Bible

Church even, and irretrievably divested the Old
Testament of its character as the * Word of
God,' meant, it seems to me. the v\u\ of the
theological and the beginning of the religious-
historical treatment of the Old Testament.
The Catholic Church, too, even if it does so
more slowly, will not always be able to hold
itself aloof from the results of modern science,
as perhaps sundry slight indications already
tend to show.

The resurrection of the Babylonian-
Assyrian literature which, certainly not with-
out Cods will, is being accomplished in our
time, and which has suddenly taken its place
by the side of the only literature also of the
hit her- Asiatic world the old Hebrew — that, up
to that time, had survived from the past, is ever
constraining us anew with irresistible force
to undertake a revision of our conception of
revelation which is bound up with the Old
Testament. .May the conviction make head-
way and grow, ever more and more, that only
by a dispassionate revision of the positions

Notes 221

involved can the end be reached, and that
neither while the controversy rages, nor
if and when it shall be brought nearer
to its conclusion, can our heart-religion, our
heart-fellowship with God, suffer harm or
loss.

P. 153. The photographs of the letter
from Chalach I owe to the kindness of the
Director of the Assyrian-Babylonian Depart-
ment of the British Museum, Dr E. Wallis
Budge.

P. 166. The words above cited are derived
from an essay by Walter Andrae, in which
he describes in detail the painted representa-
tions in relief on brick of the wild ox as well
as of the Dragon (Sirrns).

P. 161), 1. 4. Eberhard Schrader's essay:
Die Sage vom Wahnsinn Nebukadnezzars is
to be found in the Jahrbiicher fur protestant-
ische Theologie, vol. vii. pp. 618-629. Dan.
iv. 19 runs : Then Daniel answered and said :
My Lord, let the dream be to thy foes, and its
interpretation to thine adversaries !

222 Babel and Bible

P. 171. 1. 23. -Deutsche* Evangelisches
Iustitut fur AUertumswissemchqfl des heiligen
Land* ?." This has now been started under
the principalship of Prof. (i. II. Dalman.-

Trans.

P. 172. 1. 20. "Midnight Sun' was the
name of the ship which carried the representa-
tives of the governing bodies of the Evangelical
Churches to Palestine.

P. 184. 1. 21. Cf. Lecture I., p. 35.

P. 192, 1. 22. Cf. Lecture I., p. 70.

P. 203. 1. 5. Although Kaulen (col. 464)
speaks of " numberless statuettes found in
Babylon," etc., yet lie can only mean by this
those that have been found in Babylonia
generally. Therefore I have ventured in PI.
19 to reproduce three small clay figures, two
of which were excavated in Tel Mohammed,
not far from Bagdad, and published in Layard's
Nineveh and 'Babylon^ Tabic VII., H. I.
c-Some rude images of the Assyrian Venus,
of burnt clay, such as are found in the majority
of ruins of this period"), while the third is

Conclusion 223

taken from Leon Heuzey's Catalogue des
Antiquites Chaldeennes, Paris, 1902, p. ;J49
(No. 213). As soon as good photographs of
the exactly similar figures found by our Ex-
pedition are available, these shall appear in
place of those now published.

P. 205, 1. 1. Eduard Konig, Bibel una 1
Babel, 6th ed. p. 57.

Conclusion.
As in the case of my first, so also in this my
second Lecture on " Babel and Bible," 1 shall
be content to deal only with scientific attacks,
material to the subject in hand. I am afraid,
however, that I shall have small occasion, if
matters continue as hitherto, to concern my-
self, in the execution of this task, with evan-
gelical orthodoxy. The method of conducting
hostilities adopted by this section, especially
by the Evangelical Orthodox Press, fills me
with the deepest abhorrence. In the Evangel-
ische Kirchenzeitung, founded by the revered
Hengstenburg, one of its principal contribu-

2 2+ Babel and Bible

tors, the Rev. P. Wolff, of Friedersdorf bei
Seelow, writes (No. t. January 25, L903) as

follows : —

*• Following on the proofs which Delitzsch has
already given, we must expect that in his next
Lecture he will point out that how profoundly
inferior the views of Christendom regarding
marriage are to the Babylonian, is shewn by
the flight of the Saxon Crown-Princess. No
Babylonian princess eloped with the tutor of
her children": and again, "Delitzsch intends
to deliver a further lecture on Babylon and the
New Testament ; perhaps he will give us as
a supplement to it something on the theme of
• Babel and Berlin * : in that connection also
many points of contact could he adduced.
I might he able to offer a small contribution
to it myself. It has been proved by the
latest discoveries that the Prussian orders arc
derived from Babylon.

"On the monolith of Sanisi-Kamman IV..
preserved in the British Museum, this king
wears, on a band round the neck, depending on

Conclusion 225

the breast, a cross, which appears to be exactly
like a modern decoration. How our compre-
hension of the real meaning of the orders is
enlightened by this latest discovery ! The
order of the Red Eagle of the fourth class was
already bestowed in Babylon ! Thus as the
origin of our orders is derived beyond all doubt
from Babylon, so therefore it is proved that our
modern culture is steeped through and through
with that of Babylon." What a depth of
spiritual and moral levity finds expression in
these words of a German clergyman ! And
such samples could be multiplied tenfold !

As against this I welcome, as an Evangelical
Christian, with feelings of deep gratitude and
pleasure, the discussion of my Lecture by the
Rev. Dr. Friedrich Jeremias of Dresden (in
the Dresdner Journal of 4th February 1903),
which, though disputing my conclusions (as
was to be expected), is, both as to form and
substance, a truly noble pronouncement.

The third (final) Lecture on " Babylon and

the Bible" will be delivered as soon as opinion

226 Babel and Bible

on the views expounded in my first and this
second Lecture shall have become clear and
settled. It will show that it Lies much closer
to my heart to maintain and to build than to
overthrow and make away with pillars that
have grown tottering.

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