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

28 THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS AND TEE 0. T
28 that its origin is Semitic, is at any rate not less satisfactory
than when we assume that it was derived from the Akkadian.
9. The tree of life and the tree of the knoicledge of good
and evil. Also the Assyrian monuments exhibit a '^sacred
tree" in a form that differs in several particulars. But
no closer connection can be distinctly asserted to exist
between this tree and either the Hebrew tree of life or the
Hebrew tree of knowledge. We are not on that account
by any means justified in asserting that no such connection
exists in the latter case*.— The palm may be recognized
as the prototype of the representations of the sacred tree
on the Assyrio-Babylonian monuments. It exhibits a form,
however, that appears to have become merged into that of
a species of coniferae. See my reference in the Monats-
berichte der Berlin. Acad, der Wissensch. 1881 pp. 426
foil, (with plate).
10. And a river loent forth from Eden. This stream
does not bear any special name , as the river of Para-
dise lost by man. It is only after the river passes out of
the sacred region, that it to a certain extent assumes for
mankind a concrete form, and names are accordingly
bestowed on the river-arms. From an interpretation which
adheres to the text of the writer's statements it is impossible
to avoid the conclusion that the ideas involved have no
correspondence in reality.
from thence i. e. after passing out of the garden of Eden
(see Dillmann ad loc). The conception is, therefore, that
* The duality which actually belongs to the sacred tree, as being
the Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge, can scarcely be regarded as
an objection, for this differentiation is, according to my view, something
secondary and had its growth in the first instance upon Hebrew
soil.