Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition.pdf

Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus, though it here occurs in an abbreviated form and with some variations in detail. In all
three versions the prostration of the Deluge hero before the god is followed by the bestowal of immortality upon him, a
fate which, according to Berossus, he shared with his wife, his daughter, and the steersman. The Gilgamesh Epic
perhaps implies that Ut-napishtim's wife shared in his immortality, but the Sumerian Version mentions Ziusudu alone.
In the Gilgamesh Epic Ut-napishtim is settled by the gods at the mouth of the rivers, that is to say at the head of the
Persian Gulf, while according to a possible rendering of the Sumerian Version he is made to dwell on Dilmun, an
island in the Gulf itself. The fact that Gilgamesh in the Epic has to cross the sea to reach Ut-napishtim may be cited in
favour of the reading "Dilmun"; and the description of the sea as "the Waters of Death", if it implies more than the
great danger of their passage, was probably a later development associated with Ut-napishtim's immortality. It may be
added that in neither Hebrew version do we find any parallel to the concluding details of the original story, the Hebrew
narratives being brought to an end with the blessing of Noah and the divine promise to, or covenant with, mankind.
Such then are the contents of our Sumerian document, and from the details which have been given it will have been
seen that its story, so far as concerns the Deluge, is in essentials the same as that we already find in the Gilgamesh
Epic. It is true that this earlier version has reached us in a magical setting, and to some extent in an abbreviated form.
In the next lecture I shall have occasion to refer to another early mythological text from Nippur, which was thought by
its first interpreter to include a second Sumerian Version of the Deluge legend. That suggestion has not been
substantiated, though we shall see that the contents of the document are of a very interesting character. But in view of
the discussion that has taken place in the United States over the interpretation of the second text, and of the doubts that
have subsequently been expressed in some quarters as to the recent discovery of any new form of the Deluge legend, it
may be well to formulate briefly the proof that in the inscription published by Dr. Poebel an early Sumerian Version of
the Deluge story has actually been recovered. Any one who has followed the detailed analysis of the new text which
has been attempted in the preceding paragraphs will, I venture to think, agree that the following conclusions may be
drawn:
(i) The points of general resemblance presented by the narrative to that in the Gilgamesh Epic are sufficiently close in
themselves to show that we are dealing with a Sumerian Version of that story. And this conclusion is further supported
(a) by the occurrence throughout the text of the attested Sumerian equivalent of the Semitic word, employed in the
Babylonian Versions, for the "Flood" or "Deluge", and (b) by the use of precisely the same term for the hero's "great
boat", which is already familiar to us from an early Babylonian Version.
(ii) The close correspondence in language between portions of the Sumerian legend and the Gilgamesh Epic suggest
that the one version was ultimately derived from the other. And this conclusion in its turn is confirmed (a) by the
identity in meaning of the Sumerian and Babylonian names for the Deluge hero, which are actually found equated in a
late explanatory text, and (b) by small points of difference in the Babylonian form of the story which correspond to
later political and religious developments and suggest the work of Semitic redactors.
The cumulative effect of such general and detailed evidence is overwhelming, and we may dismiss all doubts as to the
validity of Dr. Poebel's claim. We have indeed recovered a very early, and in some of its features a very primitive,
form of the Deluge narrative which till now has reached us only in Semitic and Greek renderings; and the stream of
tradition has been tapped at a point far above any at which we have hitherto approached it. What evidence, we may
ask, does this early Sumerian Version offer with regard to the origin and literary history of the Hebrew Versions?
The general dependence of the biblical Versions upon the Babylonian legend as a whole has long been recognized, and
needs no further demonstration; and it has already been observed that the parallelisms with the version in the
Gilgamesh Epic are on the whole more detailed and striking in the earlier than in the later Hebrew Version.[1] In the
course of our analysis of the Sumerian text its more striking points of agreement or divergence, in relation to the
Hebrew Versions, were noted under the different sections of its narrative. It was also obvious that, in many features in
which the Hebrew Versions differ from the Gilgamesh Epic, the latter finds Sumerian support. These facts confirm the
conclusion, which we should naturally base on grounds of historical probability, that while the Semitic-Babylonian
Versions were derived from Sumer, the Hebrew accounts were equally clearly derived from Babylon. But there are one
or two pieces of evidence which are apparently at variance with this conclusion, and these call for some explanation.
[1] For details see especially Skinner, /Genesis/, pp. 177 ff.