First Published 1918 by Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press.
Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
THE BRITISH ACADEMY
LEGENDS OF BABYLON AND EGYPT
IN RELATION TO HEBREW TRADITION
BY
LEONARD W. KING, M.A., LITT.D., F.S.A.
Assistant Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum Professor in the University of London King's College| THE SCHWEICH LECTURES 1916 | ||
| Lecture I Traditional Origins Of Civilization |
Lecture 2 Deluge Stories and the New Sumerian Version |
Lecture 3 Creation and the Dragon Myth |
PREFACE and INTRODUCTION
In these lectures an attempt is made, not so
much to restate familiar facts, as to accommodate them to new and
supplementary evidence which has been published in America since
the outbreak of the war. But even without the excuse of recent
discovery, no apology would be needed for any comparison or
contrast of Hebrew tradition with the mythological and legendary
beliefs of Babylon and Egypt. Hebrew achievements in the sphere
of religion and ethics are only thrown into stronger relief when
studied against their contemporary background.
The bulk of our new material is furnished by some early texts,
written towards the close of the third millennium B.C. They
incorporate traditions which extend in unbroken outline from
their own period into the remote ages of the past, and claim to
trace the history of man back to his creation. They represent the
early national traditions of the Sumerian people, who preceded
the Semites as the ruling race in Babylonia; and incidentally
they necessitate a revision of current views with regard to the
cradle of Babylonian civilization. The most remarkable of the new
documents is one which relates in poetical narrative an account
of the Creation, of Antediluvian history, and of the Deluge. It
thus exhibits a close resemblance in structure to the
corresponding Hebrew traditions, a resemblance that is not shared
by the Semitic-Babylonian Versions at present known. But in
matter the Sumerian tradition is more primitive than any of the
Semitic versions. In spite of the fact that the text appears to
have reached us in a magical setting, and to some extent in
epitomized form, this early document enables us to tap the stream
of tradition at a point far above any at which approach has
hitherto been possible.
Though the resemblance of early Sumerian tradition to that of the
Hebrews is striking, it furnishes a still closer parallel to the
summaries preserved from the history of Berossus. The huge
figures incorporated in the latter's chronological scheme are no
longer to be treated as a product of Neo-Babylonian speculation;
they reappear in their original surroundings in another of these
early documents, the Sumerian Dynastic List. The sources of
Berossus had inevitably been semitized by Babylon; but two of his
three Antediluvian cities find their place among the five of
primitive Sumerian belief, and two of his ten Antediluvian kings
rejoin their Sumerian prototypes. Moreover, the recorded ages of
Sumerian and Hebrew patriarchs are strangely alike. It may be
added that in Egypt a new fragment of the Palermo Stele has
enabled us to verify, by a very similar comparison, the accuracy
of Manetho's sources for his prehistoric period, while at the
same time it demonstrates the way in which possible inaccuracies
in his system, deduced from independent evidence, may have arisen
in remote antiquity. It is clear that both Hebrew and Hellenistic
traditions were modelled on very early lines.
Thus our new material enables us to check the age, and in some
measure the accuracy, of the traditions concerning the dawn of
history which the Greeks reproduced from native sources, both in
Babylonia and Egypt, after the conquests of Alexander had brought
the Near East within the range of their intimate acquaintance.
The third body of tradition, that of the Hebrews, though unbacked
by the prestige of secular achievement, has, through
incorporation in the canons of two great religious systems,
acquired an authority which the others have not enjoyed. In
re-examining the sources of all three accounts, so far as they
are affected by the new discoveries, it will be of interest to
observe how the same problems were solved in antiquity by very
different races, living under widely divergent conditions, but
within easy reach of one another. Their periods of contact,
ascertained in history or suggested by geographical
considerations, will prompt the further question to what extent
each body of belief was evolved in independence of the others.
The close correspondence that has long been recognized and is now
confirmed between the Hebrew and the Semitic-Babylonian systems,
as compared with that of Egypt, naturally falls within the scope
of our enquiry.
Excavation has provided an extraordinarily full archaeological
commentary to the legends of Egypt and Babylon; and when I
received the invitation to deliver the Schweich Lectures for
1916, I was reminded of the terms of the Bequest and was asked to
emphasize the archaeological side of the subject. Such material
illustration was also calculated to bring out, in a more vivid
manner than was possible with purely literary evidence, the
contrasts and parallels presented by Hebrew tradition. Thanks to
a special grant for photographs from the British Academy, I was
enabled to illustrate by means of lantern slides many of the
problems discussed in the lectures; and it was originally
intended that the photographs then shown should appear as plates
in this volume. But in view of the continued and increasing
shortage of paper, it was afterwards felt to be only right that
all illustrations should be omitted. This very necessary decision
has involved a recasting of certain sections of the lectures as
delivered, which in its turn has rendered possible a fuller
treatment of the new literary evidence. To the consequent
shifting of interest is also due a transposition of names in the
title. On their literary side, and in virtue of the intimacy of
their relation to Hebrew tradition, the legends of Babylon must
be given precedence over those of Egypt.
For the delay in the appearance of the volume I must plead the
pressure of other work, on subjects far removed from
archaeological study and affording little time and few facilities
for a continuance of archaeological and textual research. It is
hoped that the insertion of references throughout, and the more
detailed discussion of problems suggested by our new literary
material, may incline the reader to add his indulgence to that
already extended to me by the British Academy.
| THE SCHWEICH LECTURES 1916 | ||
| Lecture I Traditional Origins Of Civilization |
Lecture 2 Deluge Stories and the New Sumerian Version |
Lecture 3 Creation and the Dragon Myth |