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

13. "The days extended ....
14. The god Anu ....
15. The god Sar
GENESIS I. 3
The clay tablet, on which the above is recorded, formed
the first tablet (dup pu) of a series designated, according
to the commencement, as series I'numa ills = "When
above." Compare the subscription of tablet No. 5 (see
below): D up-pi V. KAN, MI' 1-nu-ma 1-1 is. Kisdat
A s u r-b &ni-habal sar kissati sar m§,tAssur,i. e.
"Table V of the series 'When above', property of Asur-
banipal, king of the host of nations, king of Assyria." For
the meaning of the latter phrase, see my treatise "Die
assyrisch-babylonischen Keilinschriften" ("Assyrio-Baby-
lonian Cuneiform Inscriptions"), Leipzig 1872 p. 15. As to
kissat (sing, not plur. ; comp. Fr. Delitzsch in Lotz die
Inschriften Tiglath Pilesers I, Leipzig 1880 p. 76), root
tJ'JD = Aramaic ^2D (Hebr. CJD), see my remarks in Assyr.
Babyl. Keilinsch. 15, 89, Hollenfahrt der Istar ("Descent
of Istar to Hades") Giessen 18 74 p. 55.
The apodosis to lines 1. 2 cannot be lines 3 and 4 (Geo.
Smith, Oppert, Lenormant*). These latter contain no finite
verb, and their participles zaru, i. e. "^T, which stands for
i/IJ from Pit (comp. asbu 3^N from asibu = r^'^), and
muallidat (nipNp) clearly point to an intervening cir-
cumstantial clause. I doubt the correctness of P. Haupt's**
rendering, who takes inuma as a special clause = "there
* Both the latter, while they differ in the rendering of the opening
lines (Oppert: jacZis
—
"
ne s^appelait pas; Lenormant: au temps, ou &c.),
agree nevertheless in the choice of tense : fut fleur gdndrateurj. They
also take lines 3. 4 not as an explanatory parenthesis, but as the
statement of an event. This I regard as inadmissible.
** Dr. Haupt has kindly communicated to me his own translation of
the opening of the Chaldaean creation-story, which reads thus :
1*