It is singular to consider how short a time elapsed, after writings in the arrow-headed or cuneiform letters (the Keilschriften of the Germans) were discovered, before, first, the power of interpreting them was obtained, and, secondly, the range of the cuneiform literature (so to speak) was recognized. Not more than ninety years have passed since the first specimens of arrow-headed inscriptions reached Europe. They had been known for a considerable time before this. Indeed, it has been supposed that the Assyrian letters referred to by Herodotus, Thucydides, and Pliny, were in this character. Della Valle and Figueroa, early in the seventeenth century, described inscriptions in arrow-headed letters, and hazarded the idea that they are to be read from left to right. But no very satisfactory evidence was advanced to show whether the inscriptions were to be so read, or from right to left, or, as Chardin suggested, in vertical lines. The celebrated Olaus Gerhard Tychsen, of Rostock, and other German philologists, endeavoured to decipher the specimens which reached Europe towards the end of the last century; but their efforts, though ingenious and zealous, were not rewarded with success. In 1801 Dr. Hager advanced the suggestion that the combinations formed by the arrow-heads did not represent letters but words, if not entire sentences. Lichtenstein, on the other hand, maintained that the letters belonged to an old form of the Arabic or Coptic character; and he succeeded to his own satisfaction in finding various passages from the Koran in the cuneiform inscriptions. Dr. Grotefend was the first to achieve any real success in this line of research. It is said that he was led to take up the subject by a slight dispute with one of his friends, which led to a wager that he would decipher one of the cuneiform inscriptions. The results of his investigations were that cuneiform inscriptions are alphabetical, not hieroglyphical; that the language employed is the basis of most of the Eastern languages; and that it is written from right to left. Since his time, through the labours of Rich, Botta, Rawlinson, Hincks, De Saulcy, Layard, Sayce, George Smith, and others, the collection and interpretation of the arrow-headed inscriptions have been carried out with great success. We find reason to believe that, though the original literature of Babylon was lost, the tablet libraries of Assyria contained copies of most of the writings of the more ancient nation. Amongst these have been found the now celebrated descriptions of the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Deluge, the Tower of Babel, and other matters found in an abridged and expurgated form in the book of Genesis. It is to that portion of the Babylonian account which relates to the creation of the sun and moon and stars that I wish here to call attention. It is not only curious in itself, but throws light, in my opinion, on questions of considerable interest connected with the views of ancient Eastern nations respecting the heavenly bodies.
It may be well, before considering the passage in question, to consider briefly—though we may not be able definitely to determine—the real antiquity of the Babylonian account.
In Smith’s interesting work on the ChaldÆan account of Genesis, the question whether the Babylonian account preceded the writing of the book of Genesis, or vice versÂ, is not definitely dealt with. Probably this part of his subject was included among the “important comparisons and conclusions with respect to Genesis” which he preferred to avoid, as his “desire was first to obtain the recognition of the evidence without prejudice.” It might certainly have interfered to some degree with the unprejudiced recognition of the evidence of the tablets if it had been maintained by him, and still more if he had demonstrated, that the Babylonian is the earlier version. For the account in the book of Genesis, coming thus to be regarded as merely an expurgated version of a narrative originally containing much fabulous matter, and not a little that is monstrous and preposterous, would certainly not have been presented to us in quite that aspect in which it had long been regarded by theologians.
But although Mr. Smith states that he placed the various dates as low as he fairly could, considering the evidence,—nay, that he “aimed to do this rather than to establish any system of chronology,”—there can be no mistake about the relative antiquity which he in reality assigns to the Babylonian inscriptions. He states, indeed, that every copy of the Genesis legends belongs to the reign of Assurbanipal, who reigned over Assyria B.C. 670. But it is “acknowledged on all hands that the tablets are not the originals, but are only copies from earlier texts.” The Assyrians acknowledge themselves that this literature was borrowed from Babylonian sources, and of course it is to Babylonia we have to look to ascertain the approximate dates of the original documents. “The difficulty,” he proceeds, “is increased by the following considerations: it appears that at an early period in Babylonian history a great literary development took place, and numerous works were produced which embodied the prevailing myths, religion, and science of that day. Written, many of them, in a noble style of poetry on one side, or registering the highest efforts of their science on the other, these texts became the standards for Babylonian literature, and later generations were content to copy these writings instead of making new works for themselves. Clay, the material on which they were written, was everywhere abundant, copies were multiplied, and by the veneration in which they were held these texts fixed and stereotyped the style of Babylonian literature, and the language in which they were written remained the classical style in the country down to the Persian conquest. Thus it happens that texts of Rim-agu, Sargon, and Hammurabi, who were 1000 years before Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus, show the same language as the texts of these later kings, there being no sensible difference in style to match the long interval between them,”—precisely as a certain devotional style of writing of our own day closely resembles the style of the sixteenth century.
We cannot, then, from the style, determine the age of the original writings from which the Assyrian tablets were copied. But there are certain facts which enable us to form an opinion on this point. Babylonia was conquered about B.C. 1300, by Tugultininip, king of Assyria. For 250 years before that date a foreign race (called by Berosus, Arabs) had ruled in Babylonia. There is no evidence of any of the original Babylonian Genesis tablets being written after the date of Hammurabi, under whom it is supposed that this race obtained dominion in Babylonia. Many scholars, indeed, regard Hammurabi as much more ancient; but none set him later than 1550 B.C.
Now, before the time of Hammurabi several races of kings reigned, their reigns ranging over a period of 500 years. They were called chiefly Kings of Sumir and Akkad—that is, Kings of Upper and Lower Babylonia. It is believed that before this period,—ranging, say, from about 2000 B.C. to 1550 B.C. (at least not later, though possibly, and according to many scholars, probably, far earlier),—the two divisions of Babylonia were separate monarchies. Thus, evidence whether any literature was written before or after B.C. 2000, may be found in the presence or absence of mention, or traces, of this division of the Babylonian kingdom. Mr. Smith considers, for example, that two works,—the great ChaldÆan work on astrology, and a legend which he calls “The Exploits of Lubara,”—certainly belong to the period preceding B.C. 2000. In the former work, the subject of which specially connects it, as will presently be seen, with the tablet relating to the creation of the heavenly bodies, Akkad is always referred to as a separate state.
Now Mr. Smith finds that the story of the Creation and Fall belongs to the upper or Akkad division of the country. The Izdubar legends, containing the story of the Flood, and what Mr. Smith regards as probably the history of Nimrod, seem to belong to Sumir, the southern division of Babylonia. He considers the Izdubar legends to have been written at least as early as B.C. 2000. The story of the Creation “may not have been committed to writing so early;” but it also is of great antiquity. And these legends “were traditions before they were committed to writing, and were common, in some form, to all the country.” Remembering Mr. Smith’s expressed intention of setting all dates as late as possible, his endeavour to do this rather than to establish any system of chronology, we cannot misunderstand the real drift of his arguments, or the real significance of his conclusion that the period when the Genesis tablets were originally written extended from B.C. 2000 to B.C. 1550, or roughly synchronized with the period from Abraham to Moses, according to the ordinary chronology of our Bibles. “During this period it appears that traditions of the creation of the universe, and human history down to the time of Nimrod, existed parallel to, and in some points identical with, those given in the book of Genesis.”
Thus viewing the matter, we recognize the interest of that passage in the Babylonian Genesis tablets which corresponds with the account in the book of Genesis respecting the creation of the heavenly bodies. We find in it the earliest existent record of the origin of astrological superstitions. It does not express merely the vague belief, which might be variously interpreted, that the sun and moon and stars were specially created (after light had been created, after the firmament had been formed separating the waters above from the waters below, and after the land had been separated from the water) to be for signs and for seasons for the inhabitants of the world—that is, of our earth. It definitely states that those other suns, the stars, were set into constellation figures for man’s benefit; the planets and the moon next formed for his use; and the sun set thereafter in the heavens as the chief among the celestial bodies.
It runs thus, so far as the fragments have yet been gathered together:—
Fifth Tablet of Creation Legend.
1.It was delightful all that was fixed by the great gods.
2.Stars, their appearance [in figures] of animals he arranged,
3.To fix the year through the observation of their constellations,
4.Twelve months (or signs) of stars in three rows he arranged,
5.From the day when the year commences unto the close.
6.He marked the positions of the wandering stars (planets) to shine in their courses,
7.That they may not do injury, and may not trouble any one.
8.The positions of the gods Bel and Hea he fixed with him.
9.And he opened the great gates in the darkness shrouded,
10.The fastenings were strong on the left and right.
11.In its mass (i.e. the lower chaos) he made a boiling.
12.The god Uru (the moon) he caused to rise out, the night he over shadowed,
13.To fix it also for the light of the night until the shining of the day,
14.That the month might not be broken, and in its amount be regular.
15.At the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night,
16.His horns are breaking through to shine on the heaven.
17.On the seventh day to a circle he begins to swell,
18.And stretches towards the dawn further.
19.When the god Shamas (the sun) in the horizon of heaven, in the east,
20....formed beautifully and ...
21.... ...to the orbit Shamas was perfected
22.... ... ...the dawn Shamas should change
23.... ... ... ...going on its path
24.... ... ... ... ...giving judgment
25.... ... ... ... ... ...to tame
26.... ... ... ... ... ... ...a second time
27....
Of this tablet Smith remarks that it is a typical specimen of the style of the series, and shows a marked stage in the Creation, the appointment of the heavenly orbs running parallel to the biblical account of the fourth day of Creation. It is important to notice its significance in this respect. We can understand now the meaning underlying the words, “God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years.” The order, indeed, in which the bodies are formed according to the biblical account is inverted. The greater light—the sun—is made first, to rule the day: then the lesser light—the moon—to rule the night. These are the heavenly bodies which in this description rule the day of 24 hours. The sun may be regarded also as ruling (according to the ancient view, as according to nature) the seasons and the year. The stars remain as set in the heaven for signs. “He made the stars also.” “And God set them”—that is, the sun, moon, and stars—“in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night,” and so forth.
No one can doubt, I conceive, that the biblical account is superior to the other, both in a scientific and in a literary sense. It states much less as actually known, and what it does state accords better with the facts known in the writer’s day. Then, the Babylonian narrative, though impressive in certain passages, is overloaded with detail. In both accounts we find the heavenly bodies set in the firmament by a special creative act, and specially designed for the benefit of man. And in passing I would observe that the discovery of these Babylonian inscriptions, however they may be interpreted, and whether they be regarded as somewhat earlier or somewhat later than the Bible narrative, appears to dispose finally of the fantastic interpretation assigned by Hugh Miller and others to the biblical cosmogony, as corresponding to a series of visions in which the varying aspects of the world were presented. It has long seemed to me an utterly untenable proposition that a narrative seemingly intended to describe definitely a certain series of events should, after being for ages so interpreted, require now for its correct interpretation to be regarded as an account of a series of visions. If the explanation were reconcilable in any way with the words of Genesis, there yet seems something of profanity in imagining that men’s minds had thus been played with by a narrative purporting to be of one sort yet in reality of quite a different character. But whatever possibility there may be (and it can be but the barest possibility) that the Genesis narrative admits of the vision interpretation, no one can reasonably attempt to extend that interpretation to the Babylonian account. So that either a narrative from which the Genesis account was presumably derived was certainly intended to describe a series of events, or else a narrative very nearly as early as the Genesis account, and presumably derived from it at a time when its true meaning must have been known, presents the sun, moon, and stars as objects expressly created and set in the sky after the earth had been formed, and for the special benefit of man as yet uncreated.
I am not concerned, however, either to dwell upon this point, or to insist on any of its consequences. Let us return to the consideration of the Babylonian narrative as it stands.
We find twelve constellations or signs of the zodiac are mentioned as set to fix the year. I am inclined to consider that the preceding words, “stars, their appearance in figures of animals he arranged,” relate specially to the stars of the zodiac. The inventor of this astrogony probably regarded the stars as originally scattered in an irregular manner over the heavens,—rather as chaotic material from which constellations might be formed, than as objects separately and expressly created. Then they were taken and formed into figures of animals, set in such a way as to fix the year through the observation of these constellations. It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to remind the reader that the word zodiac is derived from a Greek word signifying an animal, the original name of the zone being the zodiacal way, or the pathway of the animals. Our older navigators called it the Bestiary.46 “Twelve months or signs in three rows.” Smith takes the three rows to mean (i.) the zodiacal signs, (ii.) the constellations north of the zodiac, and (iii.) the constellations south of the zodiac. But this does not agree with the words “twelve signs in three rows.” Possibly the reference is to three circles, two bounding the zodiac on the north and south respectively, the third central, the ecliptic, or track of the sun; or the two tropics and the equator may have been signified. Instead of “twelve signs in three rows,” we should, probably, read “twelve signs along a triple band.” The description was written long after astronomical temples were first erected, and as the designer of a zodiacal dome like that (far more recently) erected at Denderah would set the twelve zodiacal signs along a band formed by three parallel circles, marking its central line and its northern and southern limits, so we can understand the writer of the tablet presenting the celestial architect as working in the same lines, on a grander scale; setting the twelve zodiacal signs on the corresponding triple band in the heavens themselves.
The next point to be noticed in the Babylonian astrology is the reference to “wandering stars.” Mr. Smith remarks that the word nibir, thus translated, “is not the usual word for planet, and there is a star called Nibir near the place where the sun crossed the boundary between the old and new years, and this star was one of twelve supposed to be favourable to Babylonia.” “It is evident,” he proceeds, “from the opening of the inscription on the first tablet of the ChaldÆan astrology and astronomy, that the functions of the stars were, according to the Babylonians, to act not only as regulators of the seasons and the year, but also to be used as signs, as in Genesis i. 14; for in those ages it was generally believed that the heavenly bodies gave, by their appearance and positions, signs of events which were coming on the earth.” The two verses relating to Nibir seem to correspond to no other celestial bodies but planets (unless, perhaps, to comets). If we regard Nibir as signifying any fixed star, we can find no significance in the marking of the course of the star Nibir, that it may do no injury and may not trouble any one. Moreover, as the fixed stars, the sun, and the moon, are separately described, it seems unlikely that the planets would be left unnoticed. In the biblical narrative the reference to the celestial bodies is so short that we can understand the planets being included in the words, “He made the stars also.” But in an account so full of detail as that presented in the Babylonian tablet, the omission of the planets would be very remarkable. It is also worthy of notice that in Polyhistor’s Babylonian traditions, recorded by Berosus, we read that “Belus formed the stars, the sun, the moon, and the five planets.”
In the tablet narrative the creator of the heavenly bodies is supposed to be Anu, god of the heavens. This is inferred by Mr. Smith from the fact “that the God who created the stars, fixed places or habitations for Bel and Hea with himself in the heavens.” For according to the Babylonian theogony, the three gods Anu, Bel, and Hea share between them the divisions of the face of the sky.
The account of the creation of the moon is perhaps the most interesting part of the narrative. We see that, according to the Babylonian philosophy, the earth is regarded as formed from the waters and resting after its creation above a vast abyss of chaotic water. We find traces of this old hypothesis in several biblical passages, as, for instance, in the words of the Third Commandment, “the heaven above, the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth;” and again in Proverbs xxx. 4, “Who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth?” “The great gates in the darkness shrouded, the fastenings strong on the left and right,” in the Babylonian account, refer to the enclosure of the great infernal lake, so that the waters under the earth might not overwhelm the world. It is from out the dark ocean beneath the earth that the god Anu calls the moon into being. He opens the mighty gates shrouded in the nether darkness, and creates a vast whirlpool in the gloomy ocean; then “at his bidding, from the turmoil arose the moon like a giant bubble, and passing through the open gates mounted on its destined way across the vaults of heaven.” It is strange to reflect that in quite recent times, at least 4000 years after the Babylonian tablet was written, and who shall tell how many years after the tradition was first invented?—a theory of the moon’s origin not unlike the Babylonian hypothesis has been advanced, despite overwhelming dynamical objections; and a modern paradoxist has even pointed to the spot beneath the ocean where a sudden increase of depth indicates that matter was suddenly extruded long ago, and driven forcibly away from the earth to the orbit along which that expelled mass—our moon—is now travelling.
It would have been interesting to have known how the Babylonian tablet described the creation of Shamas, the sun; though, so far as can be judged from the fragments above quoted, there was not the same fulness of detail in this part of the description as in that relating to the moon. Mr. Smith infers that the Babylonians considered the moon the more important body, unlike the writer or compiler of the book of Genesis, who describes the sun as the greater light. It does not seem to follow very clearly, however, from the tablet record, that the sun was considered inferior to the moon in importance, and certainly we cannot imagine that the Babylonians considered the moon a greater light. The creation of the stars precedes that of the moon, though manifestly the moon was judged to be more important than the stars. Not improbably, therefore, the sun, though following the moon in order of creation, was regarded as the more important orb of the two. In fact, in the Babylonian as in the (so-called) Mosaic legend of Creation, the more important members of a series of created bodies are, in some cases, created last—man last of all orders of animated beings, for instance.
If we turn now from the consideration of the Babylonian tradition of the creation of the heavenly bodies to note how the biblical account differs from it, not only or chiefly in details, but in general character, we seem to recognize in the latter a determination to detach from the celestial orbs the individuality, so to speak, which the older tradition had given to them. The account in Genesis is not only simpler, and, in a literary sense, more effective, but it is in another sense purified. The celestial bodies do not appear in it as celestial beings. The Babylonian legend is followed only so far as it can be followed consistently with the avoidance of all that might tempt to the worship of the sun, moon, and stars. The writer of the book of Genesis, whether Moses or not, seems certainly to have shared the views of Moses as to the SabÆanism of the nation from which the children of Abraham had separated. Moses warned the Israelite,—“Take good heed unto thyself, lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven; and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.” So the writer of Genesis is careful to remove from the tradition which he follows all that might suggest the individual power and influence of the heavenly bodies. The stars are to be for signs, but we read nothing of the power of the wandering stars “to do injury or trouble any one.” (That is, not in the book of Genesis. In the song of Deborah we find, though perhaps only in a poetic fashion, the old influences assigned to the planets, when the singer says that the “stars in their courses fought against Sisera.” Deborah, however, was a woman, and women have always been loth and late to give up ancient superstitions.) Again, the sun and the moon in Genesis are the greater and the lesser lights, not, as in the Babylonian narrative, the god Shamas and the god Uru.
We may find a parallel to this treatment of the Babylonian myth in the treatment by Moses of the observance of the Sabbath, a day of rest which the Babylonian tablets show to have had, as for other reasons had been before suspected, an astrological significance. The Jewish lawgiver does not do away with the observance; in fact, he was probably powerless to do away with it. At any rate, he suffers the observance to remain, precisely as the writer of the book of Genesis retains the Babylonian tradition of the creation of the celestial bodies. But he is careful to expurgate the ChaldÆan observance, just as the writer of Genesis is careful to expurgate the Babylonian tradition. The week as a period is no longer associated with astrological superstitions, nor the Sabbath rest enjoined as a fetish. Both ideas are directly associated with the monotheistic principle which primarily led to the separation of the family of Abraham from the rest of the ChaldÆan race. In Babylonia, the method of associating the names of the sun, moon, and stars with the days, doubtless had its origin. Saturn was the Sabbath star, as it is still called (Sabbatai) in the Talmud. But, as Professor Tischendorf told Humboldt, in answer to a question specially addressed to him on the subject, “there is an entire absence in both the Old and New Testaments, of any traces of names of week-days taken from the planets.” The lunar festivals, again, though unquestionably Sabaistic in their origin, were apparently too thoroughly established to be discarded by Moses; nay, he was even obliged to permit the continuance of many observances which suspiciously resembled the old offerings of sacrifice to the moon as a deity. He had also to continue the sacrifice of the passover, the origin of which was unmistakably astronomical,—corresponding in time to the sun’s passage across the equator, or rather to the first lunar month following and including that event. But he carefully dissociates both the lunar and the lunisolar sacrifices from their primary Sabaistic significance. In fact, the history of early Hebrew legislation, so far as it related to religion, is the history of a struggle on the part of the lawgivers and the leaders of opinion against the tendency of the people to revert to the idolatrous worship of their ancestors and of races closely akin to them—especially against the tendency to the worship of the sun and moon and all the host of heaven.
In the very fact, however, that this contest was maintained, while yet the Hebrew cosmogony, and in particular the Hebrew astrogony, contains indubitable evidence of its origin in the poetical myths of older Babylonia, we find one of the strongest proofs of the influence which the literature of Babylon, when at the fulness of its development, exerted upon surrounding nations. This influence is not more clearly shown even by the fact that nearly 2000 years after the decay of Babylonian literature, science, and art, a nation like the Assyrians, engaged in establishing empire rather than in literary and scientific pursuits, should have been at the pains to obtain copies of many thousands of the tablet records which formed the libraries of older Babylonia. In both circumstances we find good reason for hoping that careful search among Assyrian and Babylonian ruins may not only be rewarded by the discovery of many other portions of the later Assyrian library (which was also in some sense a museum), but that other and earlier copies of the original Babylonian records may be obtained. For it seems unlikely that works so valuable as to be thought worth recopying after 1500 or 2000 years, in Assyria, had not been more than once copied during the interval in Babylonia. “Search in Babylonia,” says Mr. Smith, “would no doubt yield earlier copies of all these works, but that search has not yet been instituted, and for the present we have to be contented with our Assyrian copies. Looking, however, at the world-wide interest of the subjects, and at the important evidence which perfect copies of these works would undoubtedly give, there can be no doubt,” Mr. Smith adds, “that the subject of further search and discovery will not slumber, and that all as yet known will one day be superseded by newer texts and fuller and more perfect light.”
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