The Astronomy of the Bible Part 15

a.s.syriologists do not a.s.sign so late a date to this poem, and it must be noted that the theory supposes, not merely that the tablet itself, but that the poem and the series of myths upon which it was based, were all later in conception than 700 B.C. One conclusive indication of its early date is given by the position in the pantheon of Ae and Bel. Ae has not receded into comparative insignificance, nor has Bel attained to that full supremacy which, as Merodach, he possesses in the Babylonian Creation story. We may therefore put on one side as an unsupported and unfortunate guess the suggestion that the _Epic of Gilgamesh_ is the setting forth of a series of zodiacal myths.

Any legends, any mythology, any pantheon based upon the zodiac must necessarily be more recent than the zodiac; any system involving Aries as the first sign of the zodiac must be later than the adoption of Aries as the first sign, that is to say, later than 700 B.C. Systems arising before that date would inevitably be based upon Taurus as first constellation.

We cannot then, from astronomical relationships, fix the date of the Babylonian story of the Flood. Is it possible, however, to form any estimate of the comparative ages of the Babylonian legend and of the two narratives given in Genesis, or of either of these two? Does the Babylonian story connect itself with one of the Genesis narratives rather than the other?

The significant points in the Babylonian story are these:--the command to Pir-napistim to build a ship, with detailed directions; the great rise of the flood so that even the G.o.ds in the heaven of Anu feared it; the detailed dating of the duration of the flood; the stranding of the ship on the mountain of Nisir; the sending forth of the dove, the swallow, and their return; the sending forth of the raven, and its non-return; the sacrifice; the G.o.ds smelling its sweet savour; the vow of remembrance of the G.o.ddess by the lapis-stone necklace; the determination of the G.o.ds not to send a flood again upon the earth, since sin is inevitable from the sinner. To all these points we find parallels in the account as given in Genesis.

But it is in the Priestly narrative that we find the directions for the building of the ship; the great prevalence of the flood even to the height of the mountains; the stranding of the ship on a mountain; and the bow in the clouds as a covenant of remembrance--this last being perhaps paralleled in the Babylonian story by the mottled (blue-and-white) lapis necklace of the G.o.ddess which she swore by as a remembrancer. There is therefore manifest connection with the narrative told by the Priestly writer.

But it is in the Jehovistic narrative, on the other hand, that we find the sending forth of the raven, and its non-return; the sending forth of the dove, and its return; the sacrifice, and the sweet savour that was smelled of the Lord; and the determination of the Lord not to curse the earth any more for man's sake, nor smite any more every living thing, "for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." There is, therefore, no less manifest connection with the narrative told by the Jehovistic writer.

But the narrative told by the writer of the Babylonian story is one single account; even if it were a combination of two separate traditions, they have been so completely fused that they cannot now be broken up so as to form two distinct narratives, each complete in itself.

"The whole story precisely as it was written down travelled to Canaan,"--so we are told. And there,--we are asked to believe,--two Hebrew writers of very different temperaments and schools of thought, each independently worked up a complete story of the Deluge from this Gilgamesh legend. They chose out different incidents, one selecting what the other rejected, and _vice versa_, so that their two accounts were "mutually contradictory." They agreed, however, in cleansing it from its polytheistic setting, and giving it a strictly monotheistic tone. Later, an "editor" put the two narratives together, with all their inconsistencies and contradictions, and interlocked them into one, which presents all the main features of the original Gilgamesh story except its polytheism. In other words, two Hebrew scribes each told in his own way a part of the account of the Deluge which he had derived from Babylon, and a third unwittingly so recombined them as to make them represent the Babylonian original!

The two accounts of the Deluge, supposed to be present in Genesis, therefore cannot be derived from the Gilgamesh epic, nor be later than it, seeing that what is still plainly separable in Genesis is inseparably fused in the epic.

On the other hand, can the Babylonian narrative be later than, and derived from, the Genesis account? Since so many of the same circ.u.mstances are represented in both, this is a more reasonable proposition, if we a.s.sume that the Babylonian narrator had the Genesis account as it now stands, and did not have to combine two separate statements. For surely if he had the separate Priestly and Jehovistic narratives we should now be able to decompose the Babylonian narrative just as easily as we do the one in Genesis. The Babylonian adapter of the Genesis story must have either been less astute than ourselves, and did not perceive that he had really two distinct (and "contradictory") narratives to deal with, or he did not consider this circ.u.mstance of the slightest importance, and had no objection to merging them inextricably into one continuous account.

It is therefore possible that the Babylonian account was derived from that in Genesis; but it is not probable. The main circ.u.mstances are the same in both, but the details, the presentment, the att.i.tude of mind are very different. We can better explain the agreement in the general circ.u.mstances, and even in many of the details, by presuming that both are accounts--genuine traditions--of the same actual occurrence. The differences in detail, presentment, and att.i.tude, are fully and sufficiently explained by supposing that we have traditions from two, if not three, witnesses of the event.

We have also the pictorial representation of the Flood given us in the constellations. What evidence do they supply?

Here the significant points are: the ship grounded upon a high rock; the raven above it, eating the flesh of a stretched-out reptile; a sacrifice offered up by a person, who has issued forth from the ship, upon an altar, whose smoke goes up in a cloud, in which a bow is set.

In this grouping of pictures we have two characteristic features of the Priestly narrative, in the ship grounded on a rock, and in the bow set in the cloud; we have also two characteristic features of the Jehovistic narrative, in the smoking altar of sacrifice, and in the carrion bird.

There is therefore manifest connection between the constellation grouping and _both_ the narratives given in Genesis.

But the constellational picture story is the only one of all these narratives that we can date. It must have been designed--as we have seen--about 2700 B.C.

The question again comes up for answer. Were the Genesis and Babylonian narratives, any or all of them, derived from the pictured story in the constellations; or, on the other hand, was this derived from any or all of them?

The constellations were mapped out near the north lat.i.tude of 40, far to the north of Babylonia, so the pictured story cannot have come from thence. We do not know where the Genesis narratives were written, but if the Flood of the constellations was pictured from them, then they must have been already united into the account that is now presented to us in Genesis, very early in the third millennium before Christ.

Could the account in Genesis have been derived from the constellations?

If it is a double account, most decidedly not; since the pictured story in the constellations is one, and presents impartially the characteristic features of _both_ the narratives.

And (as in comparing the Genesis and the Babylonian narratives) we see that though the main circ.u.mstances are the same--in so far as they lend themselves to pictorial representations--the details, the presentment, the att.i.tude are different. In the Genesis narrative, the bow set in the cloud is a rainbow in a cloud of rain; in the constellation picture, the bow set in the cloud is the bow of an archer, and the cloud is the pillar of smoke from off the altar of sacrifice. In the narratives of Genesis and Babylonia, Noah and Pir-napistim are men: no hint is given anywhere that by their physical form or const.i.tution they were marked off from other men; in the storied picture, he who issues from the ship is a centaur: his upper part is the head and body of a man, his lower part is the body of a horse.

As before, there is no doubt that we can best explain the agreement in circ.u.mstance of all the narratives by presuming that they are independent accounts of the same historical occurrence. We can, at the same time, explain the differences in style and detail between the narratives by presuming that the originals were by men of different qualities of mind who each wrote as the occurrence most appealed to him.

The Babylonian narrator laid hold of the promise that, though beast, or famine, or pestilence might diminish men, a flood should not again sweep away every living thing, and connected the promise with the signets--the lapis necklace of the G.o.ddess Sirtu that she touched as a remembrancer.

The picturer of the constellations saw the pledge in the smoke of the sacrifice, in the spirit of the words of the Lord as given by Asaph, "Gather My saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice." The writer in Genesis saw the promise in the rain-cloud, for the rainbow can only appear with the shining of the sun.

The writer in Genesis saw in Noah a righteous man, worthy to escape the flood of desolation that swept away the wickedness around; there is no explanation apparent, at least on the surface, as to why the designer of the constellations made him, who issued from the ship and offered the sacrifice, a centaur--one who partook of two natures.

The comparison of the Deluge narratives from Genesis, from the constellations, and from Babylonia, presents a clear issue. If all the accounts are independent, and if there are two accounts intermingled into one in Genesis, then the chief facts presented in both parts of that dual narrative must have been so intermingled at an earlier date than 2700 B.C. The editor who first united the two stories into one must have done his work before that date.

But if the accounts are not independent histories, and the narrative as we have it in Genesis is derived either in whole or in part from Babylonia or from the constellations--if, in short, the Genesis story came from a Babylonian or a stellar myth--then we cannot escape from this conclusion: that the narrative in Genesis is not, and never has been, two separable portions; that the scholars who have so divided it have been entirely in error. But we cannot so lightly put on one side the whole of the results which the learning and research of so many scholars have given us in the last century-and-a-half. We must therefore unhesitatingly reject the theory that the Genesis Deluge story owes anything either to star myth or to Babylonian mythology. And if the Genesis Deluge story is not so derived, certainly no other portion of Holy Scripture.

FOOTNOTES:

[171:1] _Babel and Bible_, Johns' translation, pp. 42-46.

[176:1] T. G. Pinches, _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records of a.s.syria and Babylonia_, pp. 102-107.

CHAPTER IV

THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL AND THE ZODIAC

The earliest reference in Scripture to the constellations of the zodiac occurs in the course of the history of Joseph. In relating his second dream to his brethren he said--

"Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon, and the eleven stars made obeisance to me."

The word "_Kochab_" in the Hebrew means both "star" and "constellation."

The significance, therefore, of the reference to the "eleven stars" is clear. Just as Joseph's eleven brethren were eleven out of the twelve sons of Jacob, so Joseph saw eleven constellations out of the twelve come and bow down to him. And the twelve constellations can only mean the twelve of the zodiac.

There can be no reasonable doubt that the zodiac in question was practically the same as we have now, the one transmitted to us through Aratus and Ptolemy. It had been designed quite a thousand years earlier than the days of Joseph; it was known in Mesopotamia from whence his ancestors had come; it was known in Egypt; that is to say it was known on both sides of Canaan. There have been other zodiacs: thus the Chinese have one of their own: but we have no evidence of any zodiac, except the one transmitted to us by the Greeks, as having been at any time adopted in Canaan or the neighbouring countries.

There is no need to suppose that each of the brethren had a zodiacal figure already a.s.signed to him as a kind of armorial bearing or device.

The dream was appropriate, and perfectly intelligible to Jacob, to Joseph, and his brethren, without supposing that any such arrangement had then been made. It is quite true that there are Jewish traditions a.s.signing a constellation to each of the tribes of Israel, but it does not appear that any such traditions can be distinctly traced to a great antiquity, and they are mostly somewhat indefinite. Josephus, for instance, makes a vague a.s.sertion about the twelve precious stones of the High Priest's breast-plate, each of which bore the name of one of the tribes, connecting them with the signs of the zodiac:--

"Now the names of all those sons of Jacob were engraven in these stones, whom we esteem the heads of our tribes, each stone having the honour of a name, in the order according to which they were born. . . . And for the twelve stones whether we understand by them the months, or whether we understand the like number of the signs of that circle which the Greeks call the Zodiac, we shall not be mistaken in their meaning."[187:1]

But whilst there is no sufficient evidence that each of the sons of Jacob had a zodiacal figure for his coat-of-arms, nor even that the tribes deriving their names from them were so furnished, there is strong and harmonious tradition as to the character of the devices borne on the standards carried by the four divisions of the host in the march through the wilderness. The four divisions, or camps, each contained three tribes, and were known by the name of the princ.i.p.al tribe in each.

The camp of Judah was on the east, and the division of Judah led on the march. The camp of Reuben was on the south. The camp of Ephraim was on the west. The camp of Dan was on the north, and the division of Dan brought up the rear. And the traditional devices shown on the four standards were these:--For Judah, a lion; for Reuben, a man and a river; for Ephraim, a bull; for Dan, an eagle and a serpent.

In these four standards we cannot fail to see again the four cherubic forms of lion, man, ox and eagle; but in two cases an addition was made to the cherubic form, an addition recalling the constellation figure.

For just as the crest of Reuben was not a man only, but a man and a river, so Aquarius is not a man only, but a man pouring out a stream of water. And as the crest of Dan was not an eagle only, but an eagle and a serpent, so the great group of constellations, cl.u.s.tering round the autumnal equinox, included not only the Eagle, but also the Scorpion and the Serpent (_see_ diagram, p. 189).

There appears to be an obvious connection between these devices and the blessings p.r.o.nounced by Jacob upon his sons, and by Moses upon the tribes; indeed, it would seem probable that it was the former that largely determined the choice of the devices adopted by the four great divisions of the host in the wilderness.

The blessing p.r.o.nounced by Jacob on Judah runs, "Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?" "The Lion of the tribe of Judah" is the t.i.tle given to our Lord Himself in the Apocalypse of St. John.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OPHIUCHUS AND THE NEIGHBOURING CONSTELLATIONS.]

The blessing p.r.o.nounced upon Joseph by Moses bears as emphatic a reference to the bull. "The firstling of his bullock, majesty is his; and his horns are the horns of the wild-ox."

Jacob's blessing upon Joseph does not show any reference to the ox or bull in our Authorized Version. But in our Revised Version Jacob says of Simeon and Levi--

"In their anger they slew a man, And in their self-will they houghed an ox."

The first line appears to refer to the ma.s.sacre of the Shechemites; the second is interpreted by the Jerusalem Targum, "In their wilfulness they sold Joseph their brother, who is likened to an ox." And in the blessing of Joseph it is said that his "branches (_margin_, daughters), run over the wall." Some translators have rendered this, "The daughters walk upon the bull," "wall" and "bull" being only distinguishable in the original by a slight difference in the pointing.

Of Reuben, his father said, "Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel;"