the eighth, appears to state the Creation and Fall of Man. There are several other tablets, but very mulitated; and no number can be positively proved beyond the fifth tablet. In the Babylonian account, the moon is created before the sun.1 As to the fragments regarding man, one fragment might belong to the purest system of religion, but mutilations render the sense uncertain. On another fragment is an account of the curse after the Fall." "The obverse of the tablet giving the creation of man when it breaks off, leaves him in a state of purity, and where it recommences on the reverse man has already fallen.", "The word 'Adam,' is not used as a proper name, but for all mankind. The Tree of Life seems referred to as the grove or forest of the gods. The dragon of the sea, answering to the serpent in Genesis, is connected with the Fall, bringing it about, and sharing the curse. He is conceived of as a spirit of evil, self-existent and eternal, belonging to the original chaos, opposed to and older than the gods." "He is 'the intelligent guide,' or, according to another interpretation, 'the intelligent fish,' the ‘teacher of mankind,' 'the lord of understanding.' One of his emblems is the 'wedge' or 'arrow-head,' the essential element of cuneiform writing, which seems to be assigned to him as the inventor, or at least the patron, of the Chaldean alphabet. Another is the serpent, which occupies so conspicuous a place among the symbols of the gods on the black stones recording benefactions, and which sometimes appears upon the cylinders. This symbol, here as elsewhere, is emblematic of superhuman knowledge-a record of the primeval belief that 'the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field.'" 5 The Assyrians, who made these tablets, acknowledge that they borrowed from Babylonian sources. The greater part being copied in the age of Assurbanipal, B.C. 670. It is certain that the Babylonians in the period about B.C. 2000 to 1 "The Chaldean Account of Genesis,” p. 75: George Smith. 2 "The Chaldean Account of Genesis," pp. 82-85: George Smith. 3 "The Chaldean Account of Genesis," p. 86: George Smith. 4 "The Chaldean Account of Genesis," p. 90: George Smith. 5 "The Five Great Monarchies of the Eastern World," vol. i. p. 154: George Rawlinson, M.A. "The Chaldean Account of Genesis,” pp. 22, 28 : George Smith, 1500 believed in a story similar to that in Genesis. We may, therefore, regard it as settled for ever that the Bible account of the Divine Creation of Man and of his Temptation and Fall of Man by means of an evil spirit or serpent, are not modern inventions. It follows that the doctrine of redemption recorded by Moses (Gen. iii. 15) in connection with the Transgression and Fall, disposes of the error as to Christianity having been evolved from human consciousness, apart from Divine or Supernatural influence. The essentials of our faith are foreshadowed in the primeval record.. The superiority of the Mosaic record may be seen by reading, as specimen, a fine passage from fragments of the fifth tablet, an account of the fourth day of creation." " Obverse 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 position of the wandering stars (planets) to shine in their courses, 7. that they may not do injury, and may not trouble anyone, 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. II. In the mass (i.e., the lower chaos) he made a boiling, 12. the god Uru (the moon) he caused to rise out, the night he overshadowed, 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 1 "The Chaldean Account of Genesis," p. 100: George Smith, Primeval Tradition. 277 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, Now read from the Bible, Gen i. 14-19, "God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth; and it was so. And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day." It seems hardly credible that the determined resolve to be rid of miracles, inspiration, prophecy, everything supernatural, should lead any man to regard Moses as having obtained his theology and cosmology from a jumble of serpent worship, devil worship, and Babylonian myth; yet, "some have gone so far as to argue that the Mosaic account was derived from it. Others, who reject this notion, suggest that a certain ‘old Chaldee tradition' was 'the basis of them both.' If we drop out the word 'Chaldee' from the statement, it may be regarded as fairly expressing the truth. The Babylonian legend embodies a primeval tradition, common to all mankind, of which an inspired author has given us the true ground-work in the first and second chapters of Genesis."1 There are a few persons who say "Theologians retain the Genesis account to prop up the theory of the Fall and of Satan's personality—retain it against reason; and if the bookof any other religion gave an account of a speaking serpent, and of woman formed from the side of man, the whole would be counted an absurdity." Doubtless, but these marvels are certainly true in their spiritual meaning, really live in moral and physical events now operating; and are written in a manner so as to be understood by children, yet with depths for profoundest minds; are related in a Book which holds and will hold the world in awe; are connected with a scheme wonderfully comprehensive and mysterious; indeed, are the only accepted narrative which sufficiently explains the sin, the misery, the past and future of mankind. Take away the ancient narrative, deny the recorded events, refuse the essential meaning, and assert that there is no record of the earthly being so acted upon in primeval man that, as with men now a days, higher powers received damage, and what then? You are without any explanation of that in man which leads to devil-worship, and of those almost universal traditions which relate of sin entering by means of an evil principle. Nor do you get rid of marvels; the gradual growth of the universal mind of humanity, as asserted by some philosophers; and the redemption and sanctification affirmed with better authority by Christians; are nobler works, more lustrous in beauty and goodness, greater marvels, than any old wonder. The most practical men that the world has ever seen do consequently maintain that the knowledge of those old mysterious transactions were handed down to Moses through a tradition which had become the almost exclusive possession of the few who retained their faith in the primitive religion. The same being confirmed and probably enlarged to him by new revelation. In full confidence we retain our faith, revere the narratives, the ceremonies, the symbols in which it is embodied; and our confidence is further warranted because the verity and reality of both narratives are seen in the spiritual building 1 "The Five Great Monarchies," vol. i. p. 182: George Rawlinson, M. A. Confirmation of both Accounts. 279 which Scripture erects. The creation of heaven and earth is the fact on which rests the declaration that we shall see a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. xxi. 1). The beginning of all things is treated as the beginning of manifestation concerning the mystery of the Divine nature (Jno. i. 1). The Spirit brooding over the waters and bringing forth life. prefigures the continual operation of God in our souls (Jno. iii. 5). The springing up of light is an analogue of the glory and the light which we hope to see by in the city of God (Rev. xxi. 23). The birth of land from the sea (Gen. i. 9) reminds us of all things being made new, and of there being no more troublous things like the sea (Rev. xxi. 1). The springing up of plants (Gen. i. 11) is a figure of the tree with food for all nations (Rev. xxii. 2). The sun and the moon and the stars shining with light, as of the star that led the wise (Mat. ii. 2), are a witness of mystery not yet fully known (Rev. xii. 1; xxi. 23). The Sabbath rest is symbol of the rest that remaineth (Heb. iv. 9, 10). The first narrative is full of spiritual reality and instruction, extending from the fact that God did frame the worlds (Heb. xi. 3), until it arrives at the startling statement that this frame encloses a spectacle of such vast import that angels are instructed by it (Eph. iii. 10). The reality underlying the second narrative manifests itself not only in the symbolistic and allegorising exegesis of patristic theology, but especially in Holy Scripture, and in souls of spiritual understanding. Who will forego the hope which is set forth in the fact of paradise? (Lu. xxiii. 43). From the ground, out of which we were formed, we shall again arise, re-formed, other than this body, of a higher stuff: our personal identity residing within the inner man, not the earthly outside (1 Cor. xv. 24-44). In material substance we are like all flesh, yet all flesh is not the same flesh, even as the stars are not all suns (1 Cor. xv. 39, 40). The rivers of paradise all flow into one river of life. The tree of death by the tremendous death on Calvary, has become a veritable Tree of Knowledge; and now we have access unto the Tree of Life with twelve manner of fruits. Not once, but a hundred times, are the actual facts, in their reality and their doctrinal |