Legends of Babylon and Egypt in relation to Hebrew tradition | Page 3

the war a record referring to the reigns of predynastic
rulers in the Nile Valley. This, like some of the Nippur texts, takes us
back to that dim period before the dawn of actual history, and, though
the information it affords is not detailed like theirs, it provides fresh
confirmation of the general accuracy of Manetho's sources, and
suggests some interesting points for comparison.
But the people with whose traditions we are ultimately concerned are
the Hebrews. In the first series of Schweich Lectures, delivered in the
year 1908, the late Canon Driver showed how the literature of Assyria
and Babylon had thrown light upon Hebrew traditions concerning the
origin and early history of the world. The majority of the cuneiform
documents, on which he based his comparison, date from a period no
earlier than the seventh century B.C., and yet it was clear that the texts
themselves, in some form or other, must have descended from a remote
antiquity. He concluded his brief reference to the Creation and Deluge
Tablets with these words: "The Babylonian narratives are both
polytheistic, while the corresponding biblical narratives (Gen. i and
vi-xi) are made the vehicle of a pure and exalted monotheism; but in
spite of this fundamental difference, and also variations in detail, the

resemblances are such as to leave no doubt that the Hebrew cosmogony
and the Hebrew story of the Deluge are both derived ultimately from
the same original as the Babylonian narratives, only transformed by the
magic touch of Israel's religion, and infused by it with a new spirit."(1)
Among the recently published documents from Nippur we have at last
recovered one at least of those primitive originals from which the
Babylonian accounts were derived, while others prove the existence of
variant stories of the world's origin and early history which have not
survived in the later cuneiform texts. In some of these early Sumerian
records we may trace a faint but remarkable parallel with the Hebrew
traditions of man's history between his Creation and the Flood. It will
be our task, then, to examine the relations which the Hebrew narratives
bear both to the early Sumerian and to the later Babylonian Versions,
and to ascertain how far the new discoveries support or modify current
views with regard to the contents of those early chapters of Genesis.
(1) Driver, Modern Research as illustrating the Bible (The Schweich
Lectures, 1908), p. 23.
I need not remind you that Genesis is the book of Hebrew origins, and
that its contents mark it off to some extent from the other books of the
Hebrew Bible. The object of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua is
to describe in their origin the fundamental institutions of the national
faith and to trace from the earliest times the course of events which led
to the Hebrew settlement in Palestine. Of this national history the Book
of Genesis forms the introductory section. Four centuries of complete
silence lie between its close and the beginning of Exodus, where we
enter on the history of a nation as contrasted with that of a family.(1)
While Exodus and the succeeding books contain national traditions,
Genesis is largely made up of individual biography. Chapters xii-l are
concerned with the immediate ancestors of the Hebrew race, beginning
with Abram's migration into Canaan and closing with Joseph's death in
Egypt. But the aim of the book is not confined to recounting the
ancestry of Israel. It seeks also to show her relation to other peoples in
the world, and probing still deeper into the past it describes how the
earth itself was prepared for man's habitation. Thus the patriarchal
biographies are preceded, in chapters i-xi, by an account of the original

of the world, the beginnings of civilization, and the distribution of the
various races of mankind. It is, of course, with certain parts of this first
group of chapters that such striking parallels have long been recognized
in the cuneiform texts.
(1) Cf., e.g., Skinner, _A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on
Genesis (1912), p. ii f.; Driver, The Book of Genesis, 10th ed. (1916),
pp. 1 ff.; Ryle, The Book of Genesis_ (1914), pp. x ff.
In approaching this particular body of Hebrew traditions, the necessity
for some caution will be apparent. It is not as though we were dealing
with the reported beliefs of a Malayan or Central Australian tribe. In
such a case there would be no difficulty in applying a purely objective
criticism, without regard to ulterior consequences. But here our own
feelings are involved, having their roots deep in early associations. The
ground too is well trodden; and, had there been no new material to
discuss, I think I should have preferred a less contentious theme. The
new material is my justification for the choice of subject, and