THE CHALDAIC ACCOUNT OF THE DELUGE.

Kumara Times, Issue 892, 9 August 1879, Page 4

THE CHALDAIC ACCOUNT OF THE DELUGE.

Such was the title of a very interesting essay, characterised by careful research and study, which was delivered at the Auckland Young Men’s Christian Association Rooms recently, by Mr R. C. Baratow, R.M. Mr Barstow commenced by describing the land of Chaldea, its geographical position, boundaries, &c., and its history, which, until recently, was a blank. During the present century a spirit of research into the mysteries of ancient days seized mankind, and after Italy and Greece had been ransacked for statuary, vases, &c., attacks were made on Assyrian and Babylonian mounds, with a view of exhuming the carved alabaster slabs which had been used for decorating palaces and temples. Hothen described the efforts which had been made to decipher the inscriptions, and the key being found in the inscription on the Rosetta stone, which was sculptured on three sides, one being in Greek, and the latter intimating that the inscription was in three languages. Greek being known, the other two were easily mastered, aqd how any tolerable Egyptologist could read the inscription on Cleopatra’s Needle. Layard had been engaged in excavating various mounds, the ruins of old palaces and temples, and brought to England some 20,000 pieces of slabs or tablets, all bearing cuniform characters, and further discoveries shewed that these had belonged to the Assyrian monarch’s library. No entire tile had yet been found; but they appeared to be about 15 inches.by 12 inches, divided into three or more, columns. For years Oriental scholars devoted themselves to the interpretation of these historic tablets, and found allusions to Tiglath Pileser, Nebuchadnezzar, and other rulers mentioned in the Bible, and it became evident that the Assyrians had largely borrowed from the Babylonian works, and that many of the tablets were only transcripts. When the late Mr George Smith was examining the collection of fragmentary tablets at the British Museum, he noticed a piece in which mention was made of an ark restin'; on Mount Noyer, followed by an account of the sending forth of a dove, which, finding no resting-place, returned. This plainly alluded to the Deluge, and appeared to be part of a narrative, told by a person named Izdubar. This discovery set him to work, and he was rewarded by finding two more small portions of the same tablet, and parts of another copy of the same subject, with a further account of sending out two birds. In the year 1873 Mr Smith went to Konyunjik, and discovered a new fragment of his No 1 tablet, in which was related the command to build and fill the ark. Some other pieces he found in proximity to^ portions of tablets describing the creation of animals and the fall of man, and discovered a tablet which showed they were portions of a library of a monarch who reigned in Assyria from the years 670 to 630 b c. This library had first been formed 860 years b.c. ; and successive monarchs had added to it, and about 710 B.c. Sennachrib removed it to Nineveh. During a later visit, five years ago, Mr Smith obtained farther pieces of the Deluge tablet, also some fragments of tablets apparently a thousand years older, on the same subject, and there is good reason to believe the story of the flood was committed to tablets of clay as early as the reign of Urukh, King of Ur, anterior to the Elamite invasion and conquest of Ur, the date of which is fixed by a tablet as the year b.c. 2280. The most complete of the Deluge tablets is composed of sixteen pieces, making up about threefourths of the entire. There are three columns on each side of it, and the fragments of other copies help to make up the deficiencies. The Chaldaic version contains 290 lines, or verses, while the Biblical account was comprised in three chapters, containing 68 verses, or about one-fourth the length of the former. The lecturer then referred to the great antiquity of these records, which must have anticipated the Mosaic description by 700 years, and their antiquity being once established, there could remain but little doubt that the Scriptural version was an abridgment of an earlier narrative. At the outset they were met by an apparent difficulty in the fact that the name of the chief personage in the Bible narrative is Noah, while on the tablet it was Hasisandta, and an Egyptian Make-Hor, the person saved. The lecturer then JOPceeded-to show that these could be the same persons, and the difference in name was no bar to the unity of persons. The strongest argument in favor of Noah’s and Hasisandra’s floods being identical consists in the fact that the fragments of tiles found evidently are portions of tablets which have described the creation of the world, &c. He then proceeded to compare the respective stories, the coincidences of which were as striking as the discrepancies, and proceeded to give the translations from the tablets. He referred to the allusions to several gods, but pointed eut that at that time polytheism was universal. In the extracts which he had read they would observe many points of resemblance to the narrative in Genesis —the command to build the ark, the sin of the world, the threat to destroy it, the size of the Ark, the animals to go into it, the coating.inside and outside with pitch, the storing of food, the coming of the flood, the destruction of the people, the end of the Deluge, the opening of the window, the resting on the mountain, the sendirg forth of birds, leaving the ark building an altar, the sacrifice and the promise that a deluge would not occur again, were common to both accounts. On the other hand, there were important differences. One of names (as already JEipnsd to), the probable number of

people saved in the ark, the duration of the Deluge, the probable number of birds sent out, and, perhaps, also in the dimen* sions of the ark ; for in none of the tablets was the number of cubits distinct. The lecturer then proceeded to refer to these differences, demonstrating how they might have occurred, or how they might be only apparent, giving examples from Scripture in support of his argument. The ark itself was a large vessel, of about 60,000 tons, or the same capacity as six of the largest British ironclads. This he adduced as a proof that there must have been more than eight persons saved, and as an argument in favor of the Chaldaic version, The lecturer, after referring in detail to the various points of difference, said, in calling their attention to one of the most wonderful discoveries of the present age—namely, the bringing to light the long-lost literature of Assyria and Chaldea—he bad been actuated by a desire of pointing out how many of the main incidents of one of the grandest events in Bible history had been confirmed from extraneous and independent sources. Although the narration did not exactly tally, that very circumstance strengthened the presumption of their genuinenes, as it showed that neither was a copy of the other. The lecturer then referred briefly to other tablets found relative to chaos, the fall of a celestial being, the war in heaven and the creation of man, the faU, &c.