move only amongst mists. But we know vaguely that in this same Lowland there first existed a primeval race, neither Indo-germanic nor Semitic, which we call the Sumerians or the "Accadians." To them succeed the Semitic Babylonians, with whom history first concerns itself from 3800 B.C. onwards. In 2500 B.C. we have the reign of a King Hammurabi, the contemporary of Abraham, supposed to appear under the name Amraphel, King of Shinar, in that strange fourteenth chapter of Genesis, in which Abraham is depicted as a warrior fighting with powerful Kings from the East. Now Hammurabi was the author of a code of Laws, known by his name, and in this code we find enactments precisely similar to those embodied in the Laws of Moses.1 When the Israelites were only a nomad race, Babylonia was a civilized country, with a definite organization of political and social life, with a civil code, with a peculiar writing which we find on the cuneiform inscriptions, with astronomical knowledge and a considerable artistic development. When we divide the Zodiac into twelve signs and call them the Bull, the Twins, the Ram, etc., when we divide the circle into 360°, the hour into 60 minutes and the minute into 60 seconds, we are doing what the Babylonians did about 5000 years ago. Let us take a few definite instances of the Babylonian influence upon the Hebrews: (i) The story of the exposure of Moses in the ark of bulrushes is the story of a King Sargani, one of the oldest of the Babylonian rulers yet known, belonging to the third or perhaps the fourth millennium B.C. (ii) The Hebrew story of Creation in Genesis, chapter i., is derived from a Babylonian creation epic, written upon seven tablets and discovered in 1872 by G. Smith, in the library of Assurbanipal at Nineveh, the exploits of Marduk, the supreme God of Babylon, being transferred to the God of Israel. 1 See Delitzsch, Babel and Bible, English translation, 1903, pp. 34 and 186. (iii) The story of Noah's flood is derived from the Babylonian deluge story, also written on tablets and found in the same library. In this case we know that the Babylonians possessed a legend of a flood from a certain Berossus, a Babylonian priest who lived about 300 B.O. and compiled a work on Babylonian History. Babylonia was especially the land of floods, the alluvial lowlands along the course of all great rivers discharging into the sea being usually subject to cyclones, tornadoes and deluges. The Babylonian Noah, called Xisuthros or Ut-napishtim, receives a command from the God of the Ocean to build a ship of a specified size, and to carry in it his family and all living seed. He does what he is told, the doors of the ship are closed, and he tosses about upon the billows until at length the vessel strands upon a mountain called Nizir. Then follows the episode of the dove, and finally, when land has appeared again, Xisuthros offers upon the top of the mountain a sacrifice. The story was transplanted to Palestine, but unfortunately it was forgotten that the local conditions in Babylonia and in Canaan are quite different, so that the account given in Genesis is now declared to be scientifically impossible. (iv) Similarly the story of Man's fall in the Garden of Eden is to be paralleled in Babylon. There is an old Babylonian cylinder seal, in which we find in the middle a tree with hanging fruit. On the right sits a man, on the left a woman, both stretching their hands out to the fruit, and behind the woman is a serpent. It may also be remarked that the site of Paradise, with its four rivers, of which the Tigris and the Euphrates are two, points decisively to Babylonia. (v) More doubtfully, the weekly Sabbath came from the same source. The Babylonians appear to have had a Sabbath Day (Sabattu), on which no work was to be done, celebrated on the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days of a month. (vi) The Lex talionis, that is to say, the ordinance, “ An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," existed in Babylonian law. (vii) Even the very word which designates the Hebrew C God is by some authorities traced in Babylonian records. At all events, there are three small clay tablets in the British Museum which belong to the age of Hammurabi, and contain three names, Ja-a-ve-ilu, Ja-ve-ilu, Ja-u-um-ilu, which seem to mean "Jahveh is God." There is some doubt about this, however. There are many other links of connection especially based on the legal and ethical code, but the evidences given are enough to show how close is the correspondence between Babylonian and Hebraic thought. No doubt is possible as to which came first, for the Assyrian civilization is much older than the Jewish. Hence the conclusion follows that the priestly writers, when they were editing their ancient records, found a large number of existing beliefs, myths and observances borrowed from their Eastern neighbours. When and how this influence was exerted is easy to explain. The Bible itself contains references to an early connection. Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees (Genesis xi. 28). The ancestors of the Hebrews are said to have dwelt beyond the river, that is to say, the Euphrates, and "served other Gods" (Joshua xxiv. 2). When the El-Amarna tablets were discovered in the winter of 1887, between Thebes and Memphis, it was found that they contained letters of Babylonian and Mesopotamian Kings to the Pharaohs Amenophis III. and IV., and communications from Canaanite cities such as Tyre and Sidon to the Egyptian Court. There are also letters written from Jerusalem before the immigration of the Israelites into the Promised Land, which exist in the Berlin museums. Now the fact that the chiefs of Canaan avail themselves of the Babylonian language and write on clay tablets, somewhere between 2200 and 1400 B.C., proves the omnipotent influence of Babylonia, so that when the Twelve Tribes of Israel invaded Canaan they came to a land largely permeated with Babylonian culture. It is at least a significant fact that when the first Canaanite city, Jericho, was captured, a Babylonish mantle excited the greed of Achan (Joshua vii. 21). Probably Babylonish ideas were first naturalized among the Canaanites, and then transmitted from them to the invading Israelites. In later times, of course, the connection between the two countries is obvious, for Judah was carried captive into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar and the Jews deported in 586 B.C., and it was not till after Cyrus the Persian conquered Babylon, 538 B.C., that the Jews were restored to their native country." It is easy, nevertheless, to exaggerate the range of this Babylonian influence. When we speak of derivation of ideas, we do not necessarily imply conscious imitation. Babylon may have originally worshipped only one God in the form of Marduk, the God of Light, but the Myths are full of a multitude of gods, and the great distinction between the early legends of the two countries is that while the Babylonians were in spirit monotheistic, but in fact polytheistic, the Hebraic legends were both in spirit and in fact monotheistic. An ethical monotheism has been generally recognized as the main characteristic of Hebraic culture. Yet, on the other hand, it must be remembered that the Children of Israel, as the Prophets complained, were constantly falling into idolatry. They borrowed the superstitions of the Canaanites, and later on were exposed to the many gods of Babylon. No one, however, who reads the Creation story and the deluge story, first in the Babylonian tablets and then in the Book of Genesis, can doubt that the versions current among the Jews were inspired by a purer and loftier spirit. We cannot say as much for the ordinary conditions of social life. The position of woman was much higher in Babylon than it was among the Jews. Woman was admittedly inferior in Israel. Originally the property of her parents, she becomes later on the property of her husband, and she is incompetent to take part in the practice of religious worship. The story that she was taken out of the rib of Adam while he slept, is undoubtedly intended to illustrate woman's dependent and subordinate position. B.C. § IV. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. [1075. Birth of Samuel. 1025-1010. Reign of Saul. 722. Destruction of Samaria. 701. Invasion of Judah by Sennacherib. 639. Josiah's accession. 626. Josiah's thirteenth year. Call of Jeremiah. 621-20. Discovery of Deuteronomy and Josiah's reformation (D.). 610-594. Pharaoh Necho, King of Egypt. 608. Josiah's death at Megiddo. 607. Destruction of Nineveh. Downfall of Assyria and commencement of New Babylonian Empire. 605. Defeat of Pharaoh Necho by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish. 604-3. First and second rolls of Jeremiah written by Baruch. Babylonian Period. 597 (Jehoachim). First siege of Jerusalem. Some Hebrews taken to Babylon. 588-86. Second siege of Jerusalem. Capture of city by Chaldeans. Hebrews deported to Babylon. 592-72, Ezekiel. 20 |