The Old Testament In the Light of The Historical Records and Legends Part 7

The second month of the Babylonian year, Iyyar, corresponding to April-May, was dedicated to Ae as lord of mankind, though in this the records contradict each other, for the Creation-stories of the Babylonians attribute the creation of mankind to Merodach, who has, therefore, the best right to be regarded as their lord.

Anar And Kiar (pp. 16, 17, 20, etc.).

Anar, "host of heaven," and Kiar, "host of earth," are, it will be remembered, given in the Semitic Babylonian account of the Creation as the names of the powers that succeeded La?mu and La?amu, according to Damascius, the second progeny of the sea and the deep (Tiamtu and Apsu).

The Greek forms, a.s.soros and Kisare, imply that Damascius understood the former to be masculine and the latter feminine, though there is no hint of gender in the wedge-written records. That the Babylonians regarded them as being of different genders, however, is conceivable enough. The Greek form of the first, a.s.soros, moreover, implies that, in course of time, the _n_ of Anar became a.s.similated with the __ (as was usual in Semitic Babylonian), and on account of this, the etymology that connects Anar with the name of the a.s.syrian national G.o.d Aur, is not without justification, though whether it be preferable to that of Delitzsch which makes Aur to be really Aur, and connects it with _aaru_, meaning "holy," is doubtful. In favour of Delitzsch, however, is the fact that the a.s.syrians would more probably have given their chief divinity the name of "the Holy one" than that of one of the links in the chain of divinities which culminated in the rise of the G.o.d Merodach to the highest place in the kingdom of heaven.

The question naturally arises: Who were these deities, "the host of heaven" and "the host of earth"? and this is a question to which we do not get a very complete answer from the inscriptions. According to the explanatory lists of G.o.ds (as distinct from the mythological texts proper) Kiar is explained as the "host of heaven and earth" and also as Anu and Antum, in other words, as the male and female personifications of the heavens. Strange to say, this is just the explanation given in the inscriptions of the names La?mu and La?amu, for though they are not "the host of heaven and earth," they are the same, according to the lists of G.o.ds, as the deities Anu and his consort Antum. This probably arises from the worship of Anu, the G.o.d of the heavens, and his consort, at some period preceding that of the worship of Merodach, or even that of his father Aa or Ea, whose cult, as we have seen, was in early times abandoned for that of the patron G.o.d of the city of Babylon. Concerning this portion of the legend of the Creation, however, much more light is required.

Besides the simple form Kiar, there occurs in the lists of G.o.ds also Kiaragala, which is likewise explained as a manifestation of Anu and Antum, and described moreover as "Anu, who is the host (_kiat_) of heaven and earth." In addition to Anar and Kiar, the deities Enara and Ninara are mentioned. These names are apparently to be translated "lord of the host" and "lady of the host" respectively, and are doubtless both closely connected with, or the same as, the Anar and Kiar of the Babylonian story of the Creation, in close connection with which they are, in fact, mentioned. En-kiara is given, in W.A.I., III., pl. 68, as one of the three _mu-gala_ (apparently "great names") of Anu, the G.o.d of the heavens. Another Nin-ara (the second element written with a different character) is given as the equivalent of both Antum and Itar, the latter being the well-known G.o.ddess of love and war, Venus.

Tiamat.

Tiamat is the common transcription of a name generally and more correctly read as Tiamtu. The meaning of this word is "the sea," and its later and more decayed p.r.o.nunciation is _tamtu_ or _tamdu_, the feminine _t_ having changed into _d_ after the nasal _m_, a phenomenon that also meets us in other words having a nasal before the dental. As this word is the Tauthe of the Greek writer Damascius, it is clear that in his time the _m_ was p.r.o.nounced as _w_ (this peculiarity is common to the Semitic Babylonian and Akkadian languages, and finds its converse ill.u.s.tration in the provincialism of _mir_ for _wir_, "we," in German), though the decayed word _tamtu_ evidently kept its l.a.b.i.al unchanged, for it is difficult to imagine _w_ changing _t_ into _d_, unless it were p.r.o.nounced in a way to which wee are not accustomed. We have here, then, an example of a differentiation by which one and the same word, by a change of p.r.o.nunciation, forms two "vocables," the one used as a proper noun and the other-a more decayed form-as a common one.

Tiamtu (from the above it may be supposed that the real p.r.o.nunciation was as indicated by the Greek form, namely, Tiauthu), meaning originally "the sea," became then the personification of the watery deep as the producer of teeming animal life such as we find in the waters everywhere.

Dominating and covering at first the whole earth, it was she who was the first producer of living things, but when the land appeared, and creatures of higher organization and intelligence began, under the fostering care of the higher divinities, to make their appearance, she saw, so the Babylonians seem to have thought, that with the advent of man, whom the G.o.ds purposed forming, her power and importance would, in a short time, disappear, and rebellion on her part was the result. How, in the Babylonian legends, this conflict ended, the reader of the foregoing pages knows, and after her downfall and destruction or subjugation, she retained her productive power under the immediate control and direction of the G.o.ds under whose dominion she had fallen.

Tiamtu is represented in the Old Testament by _tehom_, which occurs in Gen. i. 2, where both the Authorised and Revised Versions translate "the deep." The Hebrew form of the word, however, is not quite the same, the a.s.syrian feminine ending being absent.

To all appearance the legend of Tiamtu was well known all over Western Asia. As Gunkel and Zimmern have shown, there is a reference thereto in Ps. lx.x.xix. 10, where Rahab, who was broken in pieces, is referred to, and under the same name she appears also in Isaiah li. 9, with the additional statement that she is the dragon who was pierced; likewise in Job xxvi. 12 and ix. 13, where her followers are said to be referred to; in Ps. lxxiv.

14 the dragon whose heads (a plural probably typifying the diverse forms under which Nature's creative power appears) are spoken of. Tiamtu, as Rahab and the dragon, therefore played a part in Hebrew legends of old as great, perhaps, as in the mythology of Babylonia, where she seems to have originated.

CHAPTER II. THE HISTORY, AS GIVEN IN THE BIBLE, FROM THE CREATION TO THE FLOOD.

Eden-The so-called second story of the Creation and the bilingual Babylonian account-The four rivers-The tree of life-The Temptation-The Cherubim-Cain and Abel-The names of the Patriarchs from Enoch to Noah.

"And the Lord G.o.d planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed." There also He made every pleasant and good tree to grow, including the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A river came out of Eden to water the garden, and this river was afterwards divided into four smaller streams, the Pishon, flowing round "the Hawilah," a land of gold (which was good) and bdellium and onyx stone; the Gihon, flowing round the whole land of Cush; the Hiddekel or Tigris, and the Euphrates.

It is to be noted that it was not the garden itself that was called Eden, but the district in which it lay. The river too seems to have risen in the same tract, and was divided at some indeterminate point, either in the land of Eden or on its borders.

The whereabouts of the Garden of Eden and its rivers has been so many times discussed, and so many diverse opinions prevail concerning them, that there is no need at present to add to these theories yet another, more or less probable. Indeed, in the present work, theories will be kept in the background as much as possible, and prominence given to such facts as recent discoveries have revealed to us.

It had long been known that one of the Akkadian names for "plain" was _edina_, and that that word had been borrowed by the Babylonians under the form of _edinnu_, but it was Prof. Delitzsch, the well-known a.s.syriologist, who first pointed out to a disbelieving world that this must be the Eden of Genesis. The present writer thought this identification worthless until he had the privilege of examining the tablets acquired by Dr. Hayes Ward in Babylonia on the occasion of his conducting the Wolfe expedition. Among the fragments of tablets that he then brought back was a list of cities in the Akkadian language (the Semitic Babylonian column was unfortunately broken away) which gave the following-

Transcription. Translation.

Sipar, D.S. Sippara.

Sipar Edina, D.S. Sippara of Eden.

Sipar uldua, D.S. Sippara the everlasting.

Sipar ama, D.S. Sippara of the Sun-G.o.d.

Here at last was the word Eden used as a geographical name, showing that the explanation of Delitzsch was not only plausible, but also, in all probability, true in substance and in fact. Less satisfactory, however, were the learned Professor's identifications of the rivers of Eden, for he regards the Pishon and the Gihon as ca.n.a.ls-the former being the Pallacopas (the Pallukatu of the Babylonian inscriptions), and the latter the Gu?ande (also called the Ara?tu, now identified with a large ca.n.a.l running through Babylon). He conjectured that it might be the waterway known as the Shatt en-Nil. Whatever doubt, however, attaches to his identifications of the rivers, he seems certainly to be right with regard to the Biblical Eden, and this is a decided gain, for it locates the position of that district beyond a doubt.

To Prof. Sayce belongs the honour of identifying the Babylonian story of the nature and position of Paradise as they conceived it, and here we have another example of the important details that the incantation-tablets may contain concerning beliefs not otherwise preserved to us, for the text in question, like the bilingual story of the Creation, is simply an introduction to a text of that nature. This interesting record, to which I have been able to add a few additional words since Prof. Sayce first gave his translation of it to the world, is as follows-

"Incantation: '(In) eridu a dark vine grew, it was made in a glorious place, Its appearance (as) lapis-lazuli, planted beside the Abyss, Which is Ae's path, filling eridu with fertility.

Its seat is the (central) point of the earth, Its dwelling is the couch of Nammu.

In the glorious house, which is like a forest, its shadow extends, No man enters its midst.

In its interior is the Sun-G.o.d Tammuz.

Between the mouths of the rivers (which are) on both sides.' "

The lines which follow show how this plant, which was a miraculous remedy, was to be used in the cure of a sick man. It was to be placed upon his head, and beneficent spirits would then come and stay with him, whilst the evil ones would stand aside.

From the introductory lines above translated, we see that eridu, "the good city," which Sir Henry Rawlinson recognized many years ago as a type of paradise, was, to the Babylonians, as a garden of Eden, wherein grew a glorious tree, to all appearance a vine, for the adjective "dark" may very reasonably be regarded as referring to its fruit. Strange must have been its appearance, for it is described as resembling "white lapis-lazuli,"

that is, the beautiful stone of that kind mottled blue and white. The probability that it was conceived by the Babylonians as a garden is strengthened by the fact that the G.o.d Ae, and his path, _i.e._ the rivers, filled the place with fertility, and it was, moreover, the abode of the river-G.o.d Nammu, whose streams, the Tigris and Euphrates, flowed on both sides. There, too, dwelt the Sun, making the garden fruitful with his ever-vivifying beams, whilst "the peerless mother of heaven," as Tammuz seems to be called, added, by fructifying showers, to the fertility that the two great rivers brought down from the mountains from which they flowed. To complete still further the parallel with the Biblical Eden, it was represented as a place to which access was forbidden, for "no man entered its midst," as in the case of the Garden of Eden after the fall.

Though one cannot be dogmatic in the presence of the imperfect records that we possess, it is worthy of note that Eden does not occur as the name of the earthly paradise in any of the texts referring to the Creation that have come down to us; and though it is to be found in the bilingual story of the Creation, it there occurs simply as the equivalent of the Semitic word _?erim_ in the phrase "he (Merodach) made the verdure of the _plain_." That we shall ultimately find other instances of Eden as a geographical name, occurring by itself, and not in composition with another word (as in the expression _Sipar Edina_), and even a reference to _gannat Edinni_, "the Garden of Eden," is to be expected.

Schrader(5) has pointed out that whilst in Eden the river bears no name, it is only after it has left the sacred region that it is divided, and then each separate branch received a name. So, also, in the Babylonian description of the Eridu, the rivers were unnamed, though one guesses that the Tigris and the Euphrates are meant. The expression, "the mouth of the rivers [that are on] both sides" (_pi narti ... kilallan_), recalls to the mind the fact, that it was to "a remote place at the mouth of the rivers" that the Babylonian Noah (Pir-napitim) was translated after the Flood, when the G.o.ds conferred upon him the gift of immortality. To all appearance, therefore, Gilgame, the ancient Babylonian hero who visited the immortal sage, entered into the tract regarded by the Babylonians of old times as being set apart for the abode of the blessed after their journeyings on this world should cease.

The connection of the stream which was "the path of Ae" with Eridu, seems to have been very close, for in the bilingual story of the Creation the flowing of the stream is made to be the immediate precursor of the building of eridu and esagila, "the lofty-headed temple" within it-

"When within the sea there was a stream, In that day eridu was made, esagila was built- esagila which the G.o.d Lugal-du-azaga had founded within the Abyss."

In this Babylonian Creation-story it is a question of a stream and two rivers. In Genesis it is a question of a river and four branches. The parallelism is sufficiently close to be noteworthy and to show, beyond a doubt, that the Babylonians had the same accounts of the Creation and descriptions of the circ.u.mstances concerning it, as the Hebrews, though told in a different way, and in a different connection.

Two trees are mentioned in the Biblical account of the Creation, "the tree of life" and "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." By the eating of the former, a man would live for ever, and the latter would confer upon him that knowledge which G.o.d alone was supposed to possess, namely, of good and evil, carrying with it, however, the disadvantage of the loss of that innocence which he formerly possessed. Like the Hebrews, the Babylonians and a.s.syrians also had their sacred trees, but whether they attached to them the same deep significance as the Hebrews did to theirs we do not know. Certain, however, it is, that they had beliefs concerning them that were a.n.a.logous.

The most familiar form of the sacred tree is that employed by the a.s.syrians, to a certain extent as a decorative ornament, on the sculptured slabs that adorned the walls of the royal palaces. This was the curious conglomeration of knots and leaves which various figures-winged genii with horned hats emblematic of divinity, eagle-headed figures, etc.-worship, and to which they make offerings, and touch with a conical object resembling the fruit of the fir or pine. An ingenious suggestion has been made to the effect that the genius with the pine-cone is represented in the act of fructifying the tree with the pollen (in an idealized form) from the flowers of another tree, just as it is necessary to fructify the date-palm from the pollen of the flowers growing on the "male" tree. This, however, can hardly be the true explanation of the mystic act represented, as similar genii are shown on other slabs not only holding out the conical object as if to touch therewith the figure of the king, but also doing the same thing to the effigies of the great winged bulls. Of course, the fructification of the king would be not only a possible representation to carve in alabaster, but one that we might even expect to find among the royal sculptures. The fructification of a winged bull, however, is quite a different thing, and in the highest degree improbable, unless the divine bull were a kind of representation of the king, which, though possible, is at present unprovable.

This symbolic scene, therefore, remains still a mystery for scholars to explain when they obtain the material to do so. It seems to be a peculiarly a.s.syrian design, for the offering of a pine-cone or similarly-shaped object to the sacred tree has not yet been found in Babylonian art. The Babylonian sacred tree is, moreover, a much more natural-looking object than the curious combination of knots and honeysuckle-shaped flowers found in the sculptures of a.s.syria. As in the case of the tree shown in the picture of the Temptation, described below, the sacred tree of the Babylonians often takes the form of a palm-tree, or something very like one. (See pl. III.)

As has been already remarked, the tree of Paradise of the Babylonians was, to all appearance, a vine, described as being in colour like blue and white mottled lapis-lazuli, and apparently bearing fruit (grapes) of a dark colour. That the Babylonian tree of life was a vine is supported by the fact that the ideograms composing the word for "wine" are _ge-tin_ (for _ka-tin_), "drink of life," and "the vine," _gi ge-tin_, "tree of the drink of life." In the text describing the Babylonian Paradise and its divine tree, the name of the latter is given as _kikanu_ in Semitic, and _gi-kin_ or _gi-kan_ in Akkadian, a word mentioned in the bilingual lists among plants of the vine species. Whether the Hebrews regarded the tree of life as having been a vine or not, cannot at present be decided, but it is very probable that they had the same ideas as the Babylonians in the matter.

It is noteworthy, in this connection, that the Babylonians also believed that there still existed in the world a plant (they do not seem to have regarded it as a tree) which "would make an old man young again." Judging from the statements concerning it, one would imagine that it was a kind of thorn-bush. As we shall see later, when treating of the story of the Flood, it was this plant which the Chaldean Noah gave the hero Gilgame instructions how to find-for the desire to become young again had seized him-and he seems to have succeeded in possessing himself of it, only to lose it again almost immediately, for a lion, coming that way at a time when Gilgame was otherwise occupied, carried it off-to his own benefit, as the hero remarks, for he naturally supposed that the lion who had seized the plant would have his life renewed, and prey all the longer upon the people.

The t.i.tle of a lost legend, "When the _kikanu_ (? vine, see above) grew in the land" (referring, perhaps, to the tree of life which grew in eridu), leads one to ask whether "The legend of Nisaba (the corn-deity) and the date-palm," and "The legend of the _luluppu_-tree" may not also refer to sacred trees, bearing upon the question of the tree of knowledge referred to in Gen. ii. As, however, the t.i.tles (generally a portion of the first line only) are all that are at present preserved, there is nothing to be done but wait patiently until it pleases Providence to make them further known to us.

The _kikanu_ was of three kinds, white (_pi?u_), black (_?almi_), as in the description of the tree of Paradise, and grey or blue (_sami_). In view of there being these three colours, it would seem that they refer rather to the fruit of the tree than to the tree itself. Now the only plant growing in the country and having these three colours of fruit, is the vine. Of course, this raises the question whether (1) the _kikanu_ is a synonym of _gitin_ or _karanu_, or (2) the word _gitin_, which is generally rendered "vine," is, in reality, correctly translated. Whatever be the true explanation, one thing is certain, namely, that in the description of Paradise, the word black or dark (_?almu_), applied to the tree there mentioned, cannot refer to the tree itself, for that is described as being like "white lapis" (_uknu ebbu_), a beautiful stone mottled blue and white.

[Plate III A.]