THE CREATION,

Temuka Leader, Issue 2441, 22 December 1892, Page 1

THE CREATION,

0::o of the most interesting papers read at the recent Oriental Congress held in Lmdon was by Mr Pinches, of the British Museum, and referred to a second Babylonian story of the Creation which had been discovered, differing materially from that translated by Mr George Smith. The text was inscribed on a small tablet of baked clay, and has the Sumerian version arranged in such a way that each line is divided into two parts, between which the Semitic Babylonian version is written. This of course greatly facilitated the work of translation. Among the parallels with the Biblical account, Mr Pinches particularly cited lines 25-29 where the creation of plants and some of the cattle is spoken of : “ Grass, the marshl plant, the reed, and the forest he made, “ He made the verdure of the plain,

“ The lands, the marsh, the thicket also, “ Oxen, the young of the steer, the humped cow and her calf, the sheep of the fold,

“ Meadows and forests also.” Which may be compared with Gen. 1., 11-12 :

“ And God said, Let the earth bring- forth grass, herb yielding seed, and fruit tree bearing fruit after its kind,” &c, Lines 22 and 28-30 : “ He made the beasts of the field and the living creatures of the desert “Oxen, the young of the steer, the humped cow and her calf, the sheep of the fold. “ Meadows and forests also. “The goat and the gazelle He set therein (’) ” correspond with Gen. 1, 24,, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after hia kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so.” The words “ Well proclaimed he their name.” (1, 24) corresponds with “ And, behold, it was very good ” of Gen. i., 31. “He made mankind ” (l t 20; corresponds with “ And God creatSd man ” in Gen, i., 26-27. Oh the other hand we are told there are some very considerable differences. There is no true description of Chaos, nor of the making of day and night, nor of the setting of the heavenly bodies to give light (this may, however, have been given on the lost portion) and to indicate the seasons. The text is also silent concerning fishes, sea monsters, and birds. The days of the Creation are also absent as in the longer Semitic version. That the Biblical story is based on ir, Mr Pinches says, probably few will contend; but it is not by any means impossible, he thinks, that some of the ideas contained in the Bible version were incorporated, greatly changed from the versions which we know to have existed in Babylonia in exceedingly ancient times. The real and true original, or originals, of the Bible version, or versions, as they have come down to us, he argues, have yet to be found.