This may be accounted for by their having been only derived from oral tradition through the hands of Abraham. The Biblical narrative shows us that Abraham left Chaldæa on a nomadic enterprise, just as a squatter leaves the settled districts of Australia or America at the present day, and strikes out with a small following and scanty herd to search for, discover, and occupy new country; his destiny leading him, may be for a few hundred, may be for a thousand miles. In such a train there is no room for heavy baggage, and the stone tablets containing the detailed history of the Deluge would equally with all the rest of such heavy literature be left behind.
The tradition, however reverenced and faithfully preserved at first, would, under such circumstances, soon get mutilated and dwarfed. We may, therefore, pass at once to the much more detailed accounts presented in the text of Berosus, and in the more ancient Chaldæan tablets deciphered by the late Mr. G. Smith from the collation of three separate copies.
The account by Berosus (see Appendix) was taken from the sacred books of Babylon, and is, therefore, of less value than the last-mentioned as being second-hand. The leading incidents in his narrative are similar to those contained in that of Genesis, but it terminates with the vanishing of Xisuthros (Noah) with his wife, daughter, and the pilot, after they had descended from the vessel and sacrificed to the gods, and with the return of his followers to Babylon. They restored it, and disinterred the writings left (by the pious obedience of Xisuthros) in Shurippak, the city of the Sun.
The great majority of mythologists appear to agree in assigning a much earlier date to the Deluge, than that which has hitherto been generally accepted as the soundest interpretation of the chronological evidence afforded by the Bible.
I have never had the advantage of finding the arguments on which this opinion is based, formulated in association, although, as incidentally referred to by various authors, they appear to be mainly deduced from the references made, both by sacred and profane writers, to large populations and important cities existing subsequently to the Deluge, but at so early a date, as to imply the necessity of a very long interval indeed between the general annihilation caused by the catastrophe, and the attainment of so high a pitch of civilization and so numerous a population as their existence implies.
Philologists at the same time declare that a similar inference may be drawn from the vast periods requisite for the divergence of different languages from the parent stock,97 while the testimony of the monuments and sculptures of ancient Egypt assures us that race distinction of as marked a type as occurs at the present day existed at so early a date98 as to preclude the possibility of the derivation of present nations from the descendants of Noah within the limited period usually allowed.
These difficulties vanish, if we consider the Biblical and Chaldean narratives as records of a local catastrophe, of vast extent perhaps, and resulting in general but not total destruction, whose sphere may have embraced the greater portion of Western Asia, and perhaps Europe; but which, while wrecking the great centres of northern civilization, did not extend southwards to Africa and Egypt.99 The Deluge legends indigenous in Mexico at the date of the Spanish conquest, combining the Biblical incidents of the despatch of birds from a vessel with the conception of four consecutive ages terminating in general destruction, and corresponding with the four ages or Yugas of India, supply in themselves the testimony of their probable origin from Asia. The cataclysm which caused what is called the Deluge may or may not have extended to America, probably not. In a future page I shall enumerate a few of the resemblances between the inhabitants of the New World and of the Old indicative of their community of origin.
I refer the reader to M. Lenormant’s valuable essay100 for his critical notice on the dual composition of the account in Genesis, derived as it appears to be from two documents, one of which has been called the Elohistic and the other the Jehovistic account, and for his comparison of it with the Chaldean narrative exhumed by the late Mr. George Smith from the Royal Library of Nineveh, the original of which is probably of anterior date to Moses, and nearly contemporaneous with Abraham.
I transcribe from M. Lenormant the text of the Chaldean narrative, because there are points in it which have not yet been commented on, and which, as it appears to me, assist in the solution of the Deluge story: —
I will reveal to thee, O Izdhubar, the history of my preservation – and tell to thee the decision of the gods.
The town of Shurippak, a town which thou knowest, is situated on the Euphrates. It was ancient, and in it [men did not honour] the gods. [I alone, I was] their servant, to the great gods – [The gods took counsel on the appeal of] Anu – [a deluge was proposed by] Bel – [and approved by Nabon, Nergal and] Adar.
And the god [Êa,] the immutable lord, – repeated this command in a dream. – I listened to the decree of fate that he announced, and he said to me: – “Man of Shurippak, son of Ubaratutu – thou, build a vessel and finish it [quickly]. – By a [deluge] I will destroy substance and life. – Cause thou to go up into the vessel the substance of all that has life. – The vessel thou shalt build – 600 cubits shall be the measure of its length – and 60 cubits the amount of its breadth and of its height. – [Launch it] thus on the ocean and cover it with a roof.” – I understood, and I said to Êa, my lord: – “[The vessel] that thou commandest me to build thus, – [when] I shall do it – young and old [shall laugh at me].” – [Êa opened his mouth and] spoke. – He said to me, his servant: – “[If they laugh at thee] thou shalt say to them: [Shall be punished] he who has insulted me, [for the protection of the gods] is over me. – … like to caverns … – … I will exercise my judgment on that which is on high and that which is below … – … Close the vessel … – … At a given moment that I shall cause thee to know, – enter into it, and draw the door of the ship towards thee. – Within it, thy grains, thy furniture, thy provisions, – thy riches, thy men-servants, and thy maid-servants, and thy young people – the cattle of the field and the wild beasts of the plain that I will assemble – and that I will send thee, shall be kept behind thy door.” – Khasisatra opened his mouth and spoke; – he said to Êa, his lord: – “No one has made [such a] ship. – On the prow I will fix … – I shall see … and the vessel … – the vessel thou commandest me to build [thus] – which in …101
On the fifth day [the two sides of the bark] were raised. – In its covering fourteen in all were its rafters – fourteen in all did it count above. – I placed its roof and I covered it. – I embarked in it on the sixth day; I divided its floors on the seventh; – I divided the interior compartments on the eighth. I stopped up the chinks through which the water entered in; – I visited the chinks and added what was wanting. – I poured on the exterior three times 3,600 measures of asphalte, – and three times 3,600 measures of asphalte within. – Three times 3,600 men, porters, brought on their heads the chests of provisions. – I kept 3,600 chests for the nourishment of my family, – and the mariners divided amongst themselves twice 3,600 chests. – For [provisioning] I had oxen slain; – I instituted [rations] for each day. – In [anticipation of the need of] drinks, of barrels and of wine – [I collected in quantity] like to the waters of a river, [of provisions] in quantity like to the dust of the earth. – [To arrange them in] the chests I set my hand to. – … of the sun … the vessel was completed. – … strong and – I had carried above and below the furniture of the ship. – [This lading filled the two-thirds.]
All that I possessed I gathered together; all I possessed of silver I gathered together; all that I possessed of gold I gathered – all that I possessed of the substance of life of every kind I gathered together. – I made all ascend into the vessel; my servants male and female, – the cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the plains, and the sons of the people, I made them all ascend.
Shamash
Bunsen estimates that 20,000 years were requisite for the formation of the Chinese language. This, however, is not conceded by other philologists.
Rawlinson quotes the African type on the Egyptian sculptures as being identical with that of the negro of the present day.
“While the tradition of the Deluge holds so considerable a place in the legendary memories of all branches of the Aryan race, the monuments and original texts of Egypt, with their many cosmogenic speculations, have not afforded one, even distant, allusion to this cataclysm. When the Greeks told the Egyptian priests of the Deluge of Deucalion, their reply was that they had been preserved from it as well as from the conflagration produced by Phaeton; they even added that the Hellenes were childish in attaching so much importance to that event, as there had been several local catastrophes resembling it.” – Lenormant,
François Lenormant, “The Deluge; its Traditions in Ancient Histories,”
Here several verses are wanting.
