The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament; - The Search For ...

GENESIS.
Chap. I. 1. In the beginning when God created the Heaven
and the EartJi, 2. (the Earth however was a waste and
desolation, and darkness was over the primal Jiood and the
breath of God was hovering over the water) , 3. then God
said ^c* The form of the opening of the Chaldaean crea-
tion-story, as we read it in the Assyrian language on a
clay tablet in the British Museum , is analogous. The
following is a transcription** and rendering:— ***
* For the construction of this introduction to the Biblical creation-
story, see the author's "Studien zur Kritik und Erklarung der biblischen
Urgeschicbte", Ziirich 1863 p. 40, and A. Dillmann's Genesis, Leipzig
1882. chap. I. 1.
** The transcription of Assyrian followed by me in this book is
the same as I adopted in my publication "Assyrisches Syllabar. Mit
den Jagdinschriften Asurbanipals in Anlage" Berlin 1880. With respect
to my transcription of sibilants, see my essays on this subject in the
Monatsbericht der Berl. Akademie der Wissenschaften 1877 p. 79 — 95,
and in Zeitschrift fiir Keilschriftforschung I. 1884 p. 1 foil. On the
reproduction of the respective Assyrian characters by the equivalents
ai and ja, see Monatsb. der Berl. Ak. 1880 pp. 271 — 284.
*** For the original text, see 6. Smith Transactions of the Soc. of
Biblical Archaeology IV. pi. 1 (page 363). Fried. Delitzsch Assyrische
Lesestiicke ("Assyrian Extracts") 2"'i ed. p. 78. For explanation see
G. Smith "The Chaldaean account of Genesis" London 1876 p. 62, A. H.
Sayce ibid. 2nd ed. Lond. 1880 p. 57 foil. ; Fr. Delitzsch in the German
edition of Smith's Chald. Genesis Leipzig 1876; Fr. Lenormant, les
origines de I'histoire, Paris 1880 p. 494 foil.
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