Chapter V — Mesopotamia and the Bible
1 Assyria
Mesopotamia—“the Land between the Rivers”—is a tract of country nearly 700 miles long, and from 20 to 250 miles broad, enclosed between the Euphrates and the Tigris, and extending from the mountains of Armenia to near the Persian Gulf. It is for the most part a vast plain, but is crossed near its centre by a range of hills running almost east and west-from Hit on the Euphrates, famous for its bitumen pits, to Samarah on the Tigris. North of this line the country, though dry and bare, is undulating, and rises occasionally into mountains, while south of it the region is flat and consists of rich, moist, alluvial land, formed by the rivers themselves. This land of alluvium was Babylonia, and its capital Babylon; the country north of it was Assyria, with its capital Nineveh. But the extent of both countries varied from time to time, according to the power of various monarchs and their successes in war.
The beginnings of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires are lost in obscurity, and no records exist among the people themselves accounting for their origin. Yet the account given in the Bible agrees so well with what is known from the records that there can be no reasonable doubt that in it there is a true history of the rise of these two nations, which were in after time to wield the power of the then known world. This Biblical account, borne out and amplified as it is by the late discoveries, forms one of the most interesting and instructive links in the history of the human race and its progress in civilisation.
“Taking, then, the account as it stands in the Bible,”49 says Mr Budge, “it appears that the descendants of Ham, the third son of Noah, were Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. The lands of Cush and Mizraim have hitherto been identified with Ethiopia and Egypt respectively; Phut was regarded as doubtful, and Canaan was the country with which we are so well acquainted from the frequent occurrence of the name in the Bible. The identification of the first-named and most important of these districts, the land of Cush, has been regarded by many as unsatisfactory: for Nimrod, judging from the names of towns said to have been founded by him, could hardly have been an Ethiopian, though, according to the Bible story, he was a descendant of Cush.”
Amongst the treasures of the Assyrian excavations there has luckily been found a tablet, giving, in a list of the nations, &c., along the Taurus range of mountains, a country bearing the name of Kusu, the same word as is used in the inscriptions to denote the country of Ethiopia; and from this and from other sources it is clear that two countries of this name were known to the people of the ancient world, the one being Ethiopia and the other Cappadocia or its immediate neighbourhood. It seems therefore likely that Nimrod and his followers, for some reason unrecorded, left his home in the land of Cush or Cappadocia, and journeying in a south-easterly direction, came to the land of Sumer or Shinar. There meeting perhaps with the Semitic population of the country, he did not go any farther, but settled there with his followers, and built Babylon, and Birs Nimroud, the supposed Tower of Babel.
In course of time the new comers began to mingle with the original (Semitic) inhabitants of the country, and both races were obliged, for the purpose of trade and intercourse, to learn each other’s language, so that there must have been for several hundreds of years two tongues in use at the same time in Mesopotamia, and it was not until the twelfth or even perhaps the tenth century before Christ, that the Akkadian was entirely supplanted by the language of the Semitic Babylonians. The Norman invasion in England is a case parallel to the above, but with this difference, that whilst the invasion of England by the Normans was a conquest, the entry of these people (afterwards known as Akkadians and Sumerians) into Babylonia seems to have been otherwise; and the Babylonian language, therefore, while admitting very many Akkadian and Sumerian words, has not suffered, with regard to the grammatical forms, to the same extent as the English language.
The entry of the Akkadians into Babylonia was the beginning of civilisation in that country, for they brought with them, along with their religion, their legends and traditions, their laws, their art, building knowledge, agricultural skill, and that great civiliser of nations, the art of writing. From this union of the intellectual Akkadian race and the warlike Babylonians arose the two nations of whom both tradition and history have preserved the record, as having been the mightiest of the nations of the ancient world, namely, Babylonia and Assyria, of whom so many tales are told, and whose power and high civilisation amongst the barbarism of the early ages of the world made so great an impression during the time of their supremacy.
After the mingling of these two races, but long before the Akkadian language had died out, the Babylonians, as they will be henceforth called, sent out colonies northwards and founded the great cities of Assyria—Ninua (Nineveh), Resin, Kalhu (Calah), Assur, &c.
The religion of the Assyrians was derived from Babylonia, and remained very similar to that of the latter country. Both countries worshipped the same deities, but the Assyrians made some changes in the system, especially in introducing the worship of Assur. Assur was worshipped as “king of the gods,” “father of the gods,” “the deity who created himself.” Among the other principal gods of the Assyrians were Nebo, the god of writing; Merodach, or Bel, a companion deity to Nebo; Shamas, the Sun-god, and Sin, the Moon-god; Ishtar, corresponding to Venus; Nergal and Ninip, gods of hunting; Vul, the storm god, Anu, king of heaven, and Hea, the lord of the under world.
The government of Assyria was monarchical, and the power of the king was absolute, though in practice his rule was tempered by the advice of counsellors. The commander-in-chief of the army was called the Tartan, and here was also a high officer called the Rabshakeh (2 Kings xviii. 17). Judges decided cases in the gate of the temple or the palace, and there was an appeal from them to the governor or king. The priests were a privileged class; they lived on the revenues of the temples and the offerings of worshippers. The Assyrian months were lunar, and the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days were Sabbaths of rest: extra work and even missions of mercy were forbidden, certain foods were not to be eaten, and the king was not to ride in his chariot. The laws of the country resembled in many respects those of Israel: a father was supreme in his household, and a husband had the power of divorcing his wife. Slavery was in vogue, and whole families were sometimes sold together. Various trades were practised, including weaving, dyeing, manufacture of iron goods, copper, and bronze goods, sculpture, and building, &c. But the most remarkable feature of Assyrian civilisation was their literature and libraries of clay tablets, and it is to these that we owe most of our present knowledge of this great people.
Before the days of Moses there was friendly intercourse, as we have seen, between Mesopotamia and Egypt. In later ages Assyria and Egypt were frequently at war with one another. The hostile armies were obliged to march through Palestine; and it became very difficult for the kings of Israel and Judah to look on with equanimity and preserve a strictly neutral attitude. Yet if they favoured one of the great powers they of course gave umbrage to the other; besides which, Assyria, in the days of its power, could hardly brook to leave any small kingdom independent. At length Samaria was conquered, and its inhabitants deported, by Shalmaneser or by Sargon; and afterwards Judea also, by Nebuchadnezzar.
Speaking of the captivity of Israel in Babylonia as a providential event, a great German writer, Lessing, says,—“When the child, by dint of blows and caresses had come to years of understanding, the father sent it at once into foreign countries, and here it recognised at once the good which in its father’s house it had possessed but not been conscious of.”50 Again he says,—“The child, sent abroad, saw other children, who knew more, who lived more becomingly, and asked itself in confusion, why do I not know that too? why do I not live so too? ought I not to have been taught and admonished of all this in my father’s house?”
It is because of this sojourn abroad of the Jews, and the influence of other nations upon them, that the exploration of these eastern countries is a matter of such importance to Bible students. In Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt we get into by-paths of Bible history, and the old records when unearthed, read sometimes like new chapters of the Bible.
The land of Mesopotamia, not inaptly called a graveyard of empires and nations, is now neglected and desolate, under Turkish misrule. “The monotony of the landscape would be unbroken” (says Zénaïde A. Ragozin) “but for certain elevations and hillocks of strange and varied shapes, which dot the plain in every direction; some are high and conical or pyramidal in form, others are quite extensive and rather flat on the summit, others again long and low, and all curiously unconnected with each other or with any ridge of hills. This is doubly striking in Lower Mesopotamia or Babylonia, proverbial for its excessive flatness. The few permanent villages, composed of mud-huts or plaited reed-cabins, are generally built on these eminences; but others are used as burying-grounds, and a mosque, the Mohammedan house of prayer, sometimes rises on one or the other. The substance of these mounds being rather soft and yielding, their sides are still furrowed in many places with ravines, worn by the rushing streams of rain-water. The rubbish washed away lies scattered on the plain, and is seen to contain fragments of bricks and pottery, sometimes inscribed with arrow-headed characters; in the ravines themselves are laid bare whole sides of walls of brickwork and pieces of sculptured stone.”
The Arabs never thought of exploring these curious heaps. Their law forbids them to represent the human form either in painting or sculpture, lest it should lead the ignorant into idolatry. They are superstitious, and look on relics of ancient statuary with suspicion amounting to fear, and connect them with magic and witchcraft. It is therefore with awe not devoid of horror that they tell travellers of underground passages in the mounds, haunted not only by wild beasts, but by evil spirits, strange figures having been dimly perceived in the crevices. Better instructed foreigners have long ago assumed that within these mounds must be entombed whatever ruins and relics may be preserved of the great cities of yore.
The first European whose love of learning was strong enough to make him disregard difficulty and expense, and use the pick-axe upon these mounds, was an Englishman named Rich. This was in 1820: but Mr Rich was not very successful, and it was literally true that up to 1842, “a case 3 feet square enclosed all that remained, not only of the great city Nineveh, but of Babylon itself.” In 1842 M. Botta, a French Consul stationed at Mosul on the Tigris, began to dig, and after fruitless labour at the mound of Kouyunjik, opposite Mosul, was directed by a native to Khorsabad, and there, on cutting a trench, entered a hall lined all round with sculptured slabs, representing battles, sieges, and similar events. A new and wonderful world was suddenly opened, and he walked as in a dream. The discovery created an immense sensation in Europe, and the spirit of research and enterprise was effectually aroused.
The investigation was soon taken up by Mr Austen Henry Layard, our own countryman, and the objects found were brought to the British Museum, which now boasts a splendid collection. After getting over preliminary difficulties—the interesting story of which may be found in his volumes on “Nineveh and its Remains”—Mr Layard obtained a grant of money from the Museum, with full licence from the Turkish Government, and then succeeded in organizing a band of Arabs to work willingly and well, and from that moment made new discoveries every day.
One morning, as he was going to the scene of operations—they were digging in the mound of Nimroud—two Arabs galloped up to him, and said, “Hasten, O Bey, hasten to the diggers, for they have found Nimrod himself! Wallah, it is wonderful, but it is true; we have seen him with our eyes! There is no God but God!” What they had seen was a sculptured human head, which, upon removing more earth, was seen to belong to a winged quadruped—one of those colossal “bulls” since deposited at the British Museum. A “bull” we say, but really a monster with the body of a bull (sometimes the body of a lion), the head of a man, and the wings of an eagle—the Assyrian idea of the cherubim. Many of these objects were surrounded by writing in the curious cuneiform or arrow-headed character.
Besides these so-called bulls, Mr Layard found obelisks of black basalt, with figures in low relief representing tribute being brought to the Assyrian kings. On the black obelisk in the British Museum—found in the central mound of Nimroud, amid the ruins of Shalmaneser’s palace—occurs the name and figure of Jehu, king of Israel, as bringing tribute to Shalmaneser II. (about B.C. 842). “I have received the tribute of Jehu, the son of Omri; silver, gold, bowls of gold, chalices of gold, cups of gold, pails of gold, lead, sceptres for the hand of the king, (and) spear-shafts.” The mistake indeed is made of calling him “Jehu, son of Omri;” Jehu sat upon the throne of Omri, but he was a usurper and not of Omri’s house. The tribute bearers on this obelisk carry golden cups and goblets, bars of the precious metals, and other valuable things. Rev. H. G. Tomkins, speaking of these Assyrian sculptured portraits of Jehu and his princes, says they have “strong aquiline features, and that peculiar shrug or quirk of the nostril which gives a shrewd and sinister look to many a Jew of London streets. In drawing one of these familiar faces from the monument, I was ready to believe that it belonged to a lineal ancestor of the London ‘Clo’ men.’ The bag falling down the stooping back deepened this impression.”51
In addition to these things Mr Layard brought home a large number of alabaster slabs sculptured with battle scenes, lion hunts, and the representation of sacred trees to which winged figures are making mysterious offerings. It was the custom of these Assyrian kings to have the halls and chambers of their palaces lined with plain alabaster slabs, and after each new victory to have the story engraved in a separate room, so that in one chamber we get an account of a battle in Babylonia, in another the story of the siege of Lachish near the Philistine country, and so on.
But the reader—who has no doubt visited the British Museum and looked at all these things—may perhaps ask why we repeat the familiar story. It is in order to give completeness to the picture, and also to induce young visitors to the Museum to look into things as well as look at them. Where did the antiquities come from? How have the inscriptions been deciphered? What do they say? Although many of them were brought to the Museum years ago, the writing was not immediately read; the process of decipherment is still going on, and hardly a year passes without startling discoveries being made in the Museum itself. In the year 1872 Mr George Smith there, taking up a clay tablet that had been neglected, deciphered the inscription, and found it to be the Chaldean story of the Flood. In 1873, going out to Assyria for the purpose, he actually discovered the missing portion of the tablet. Such facts are intensely interesting to the student of the Scriptures, and they attract us to give a portion of our attention to the legends and the literature of the Assyrians and the Chaldeans.
Nineveh, we read, was a city of three days’ journey. It actually extended 20 miles in length by 10 miles in breadth, and was surrounded by a great wall upon which three chariots could be driven abreast.52 Within this circumference great mounds exist, as those referred to at Nimroud, Khorsabad, and Kouyunjik. Within these mounds have been discovered six palaces and three temples; although only one of these buildings—the palace of Sennacherib, at Kouyunjik—is in a decent state of preservation. The restoration of this structure by Mr J. Ferguson, the architect, prefixed as an illustration to Layard’s “Nineveh,” shows it to have been a very magnificent pile. A second palace found at Kouyunjik belonged to Assurbanipal, the grandson of Sennacherib.
Sennacherib himself we are familiar with through the Bible. He was that monarch who so terrified the good king Hezekiah, when he sent him a blasphemous message and threatened to come and destroy Jerusalem. What the Jews of Jerusalem had to fear if he should come they knew too well; and we know now, for Sennacherib had been besieging Lachish (2 Kings xviii.; Isaiah xxxvi.) in Palestine, and we have recovered the record of that siege. It is inscribed on one of the bulls discovered at the largest of the royal buildings, and shows the monarch seated on his throne, while the writing around him says, “I, Sennacherib, the great king, the king of Assyria, seated on the throne of judgment before Lachish, I give permission for the slaughter.” Before him are the miserable captives, having rings fixed into their noses or lips, with bridles attached, so that their heads may be held facing forward while the king puts out their eyes with a pointed instrument. Captives are there having their tongues torn out, others being stripped naked and flayed alive, while human heads are piled up into pyramids.
All these tortures the Jews themselves had to fear if Sennacherib should take Jerusalem. It was doubtless a day of terrible suspense in the Holy City, and a night in which few dared go to sleep. But the early morning brought the tidings that the army of Sennacherib was destroyed, that the angel of the Lord had gone forth and slain in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred four score and five thousand men. We knew the Scripture story of the deliverance, but we can realise it better now when we have the record of the siege of Lachish, and know what fate threatened the Jews of Jerusalem.
Moreover, we have recovered Sennacherib’s own account of this very campaign, in which he tells us that he had taken forty-six fenced cities in Judea, and that he shut up Hezekiah in Jerusalem “like a bird in a cage.” He forbears to tell us why he failed to capture the bird; he glosses over the disaster which befell his army; and he seems even to misrepresent the facts by declaring that, after this, Hezekiah sent him splendid presents to Babylon, for the presents of Hezekiah were sent before this, when Sennacherib was down by Lachish, and sent with the hope of buying him off, which there was no need to do after his retreat.
A great difficulty in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah is also satisfactorily cleared up by these inscriptions. Sennacherib, coming from the Philistine country to Jerusalem, would have to travel from the south-west, whereas, in an earlier chapter, Isaiah had told us that the Assyrian invader came down from the north, that he captured Carchemish in his way, and conquered Damascus, and took Samaria, and then, after crossing the gorge at Michmash, encamped at Nob, outside Jerusalem on the north. Moreover, the prophet intimates, he is likely to take the city; whereas, in the later chapter, he says, “He shall not take it, nor so much as shoot an arrow against it.” It was a great difficulty, and it appeared to be a contradiction; but it is now satisfactorily explained, for we find from the Assyrian inscriptions that there had been an earlier campaign, conducted by Sargon, the father of Sennacherib, ten years before, and that he it was who actually came by the northerly route, and did capture Carchemish, &c., on his way. There can be no doubt that if we read the 10th chapter of Isaiah with Sargon in our minds, and not Sennacherib, all difficulty disappears.
In the 20th chapter of Isaiah there is an incidental mention of this Sargon, “In the year that the Tartan (i.e., the commander-in-chief) came unto Ashdod, when Sargon, the king of Assyria, sent him,” &c.; and for twenty-five centuries this had been the only evidence that any such monarch had lived. Not unnaturally the evidence was thought insufficient—this isolated reference standing like a doubtful fossil in old-world rocks—and many historians and critics wished to identify Sargon with Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, or Esarhaddon. Some said that Isaiah had made a mistake. But Nineveh is disinterred, and it turns out that Sargon was a very great king, and not even the first of that name, for there had been two Sargons, heroes of antiquity, before him. M. Botta finds at Khorsabad the palace of Sargon; and it appears that he was the successor of Shalmaneser, he was the father of Sennacherib, and he reigned for seventeen years. Among the treasures which Mr George Smith recovered from the ruins of Nineveh is the royal seal of Sargon, with his name and date.
As soon as Sargon ascended the throne he prosecuted the Syrian war with vigour, keeping up the siege of Tyre, storming the city of Samaria, and subduing the whole country of Israel. The kingdom of Samaria was put an end to, the people being carried into captivity and spread over the northern provinces of the Assyrian empire and in the cities of the Medes. It appears to be Sargon who is referred to in 2 Kings xvii. 6, and xviii. 11 (although the passages had hitherto been understood of Shalmaneser), where “the king of Assyria” took Samaria and carried Israel away, placing in their cities men from Babylon, from Cuthah, from Avva and Hamath and Sepharvaim.
In the eleventh year of Sargon the people of Ashdod in Philistia deposed the ruler whom Sargon had placed over them, and set up a man named Yavan, whose chief recommendation was his hostility to Assyria. Yavan made league with Hezekiah, king of Judah, with Moab, and with Edom, and led the Philistines to revolt. The leaguers sent an embassy to Egypt, asking aid, and Pharaoh held out encouragements, but did not give any assistance when the hour of danger came. Sargon, learning of the revolt, came to Palestine; Yavan fled into Egypt, the rebellion collapsed, and the cities of Ashdod and Gimtu were taken by the Assyrians. Yavan ultimately delivered himself up to the king of Meroe, or Ethiopia, who bound him and sent him in chains to Sargon.
The expedition against Ashdod took place in B.C. 711, during the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and is the one referred to in the twentieth chapter of Isaiah, where the prophet denounces the conduct of Egypt. The way in which Isaiah speaks of the Egyptians and the Ethiopians, in this and other chapters, is remarkably justified by the account given in the Assyrian inscriptions. Egypt is described in the annals of Sargon as a weak power, always stirring up revolts against Assyria, and unable to help or shield the revolters. “In those days” (remarks Mr George Smith, from whose larger work we are here quoting) “Egypt was truly a broken reed. The account which Sargon gives of the turning of the fountains and water-courses to protect the city of Ashdod strikingly parallels the similar preparations of Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxxii.); and it is a curious fact that Hezekiah’s preparations had been made only two years before, according to the ordinary chronology.”
As remarked by Mr St Chad Boscawen, the political significance of the embassy of Berodach Baladan (2 Kings xx. 12) is at once apparent when viewed in the light of the monumental inscriptions; and the atmosphere of intrigue, rebellion, and stern vengeance is very clearly apparent in the writings both of the Hebrew and the Assyrian scribe. It was this embassy, in B.C. 712, which brought about the invasion of Judea and the siege of Jerusalem in B.C. 711, by Sargon. The prophecies of Isaiah (chapters x. and xi.), so long unsolved mysteries, are now found to be clear and detailed records of this lost incident in Oriental history.
“Sargon” claimed descent from an ancient hero named Bel-bani; and he assumed the name of an old Babylonian monarch—Sargon of Agadé, who was worshipped as a demi-god—but his own name was not really Sargon. When he stormed the city of Samaria, he carried away, he tells us, 27,000 of the Israelites into captivity. The kingdom of Samaria was suppressed, and those Israelites who were not deported were placed under an Assyrian governor. Thus the Bible account of the captivity of the ten tribes is confirmed. And as to Judah, when we come to the Babylonian annals of the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar, we find confirmation of the statement that he destroyed Jerusalem, and carried the inhabitants of that city into captivity.
These, then, are some instances of the light that is being thrown upon the Scriptures by these Assyrian writings—of the manner in which the Bible narrative is being filled out and illustrated with new and copious details, and on the whole, as all critics are bound to say, is being confirmed in its statements.
Besides Ahab and Omri, Jehu and Hezekiah, the cuneiform tablets mention Menahem, Pekah, and Hoshea, kings of Israel; and Azariah, Ahaz, and Manasseh, kings of Judah. Ahaz is called Jehoahaz, his name, like so many more, being compounded with the name of Jehovah; and it would seem that on account of his perversion to foreign worship the Bible writers would not use the Lord’s name in such association. Further, the kings of Assyria and Babylon spoken of in the Bible come before us again in the cuneiform texts, with many particulars of their warlike expeditions,—Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Shalmaneser, Tiglath-Pileser, Nebuchadnezzar, &c. Tiglath-Pileser, we find, was not the first of that name, for there had been a monarch so designated as early as 1300 B.C. In fact the real name of the later king was Pul or Pulu, and it is doubtful whether he was the rightful heir; but when he ascended the throne (in B.C. 745) he took the name of the earlier conqueror, a circumstance which led the Bible writer to suppose there were two kings. [S. A. Strong, in “Records of the Past.” New Series. Vol. v.]
The other palace found at Kouyunjik belonged, as stated before, to Assurbanipal. He was the Sardanapalus of Greek writers and was a great conqueror. His date is about 640 B.C. Mr Rassam, the native co-worker with Mr Layard, was fortunate enough to discover Assurbanipal’s library—the library of the Assyrian kings. The “books” of the Assyrians differed very much from our own. They used to take a tablet of clay, to write upon it with an iron stylus, bake it into terra cotta, and then place the record on the library shelf. These clay tablets were more durable than leaves of paper or rolls of parchment, and the Assyrian records, covered up more than two thousand years ago, are in many cases so well preserved that scholars can read them.
As progress was made in deciphering the inscriptions, it was found that new and remarkable light was being obtained regarding the history and civilisation of half-forgotten empires. Collections of inscribed tablets had been made by Tiglath-Pileser II. (B.C. 745), who had copied some historical inscriptions of his predecessors. Sargon, the father of Sennacherib (B.C. 722), had increased this library by adding a collection of astrological and similar texts; and Sennacherib himself (B.C. 705) had composed copies of the Assyrian canon, short histories, and miscellaneous inscriptions to add to the collection. Sennacherib also moved the library from Calah, its original seat, to Nineveh, the capital; and Esarhaddon, the son of Sennacherib, added numerous historical and mythological texts. All the inscriptions of the former kings, however, were nothing compared to those written during the reign of Assurbanipal, the grandson of Sennacherib, who not only recorded the events of his own reign, but collected literature from other countries, and caused translations to be made of Babylonian records which were then ancient. Thousands of inscribed tablets were collected and copied, and stored in the royal library at Nineveh; and it is this royal library which has been found.
The amount of Assyrian literature now in our possession is more than equal to the entire contents of the Old Testament. It includes religion, astronomy, mythology, history, geography, natural history, royal decrees and private letters, legal decisions and deeds of sale, lists of tributes and taxes, precepts for private life, &c. Among the sacred legends are stories of the Creation and the Deluge. These narratives did not originate with the Assyrians, for they received their religious system by inheritance from the Babylonians. But neither did they originate with the Babylonians; for we learn from their own records that this learning and these traditions were brought into their country by the Akkadians.
Assurbanipal, when he made raids into Babylonia and captured a city, would carry off the sacred writings to enrich the royal library at Nineveh. When they were brought to Nineveh they were copied by the priests, and they were sometimes translated into the Assyrian tongue, although Assyrians who professed to be well educated used to learn the Akkadian language, much as English boys learn Latin, or theological students study Hebrew and read the writings in the original. It is very interesting to find that these old Assyrians and these ancient Chaldeans had their own version of the Creation, the Deluge, the Building of Babel, &c., which they venerated as being ancient even then, and regarded as most sacred.
The Chaldean narratives differed in minor particulars from those in the Bible. The Chaldean Deluge, for instance, lasted only seven days, instead of the greater part of a year; the vessel was not an ark, but a ship, of proper ship shape, with a pilot on board to navigate it, and other people on board besides the family of Noah. The Chaldean Noah, when the waters were subsiding, sent out not only a raven and a dove, but a swallow as well; and in the end of the event he was translated that he should not see death; and this in the Bible does not occur to Noah, but to Enoch. Nevertheless, with these and other differences, we have the grand fact that the cycle of narratives preserved in the early chapters of Genesis are not mere ingenious inventions on the part of Hebrew writers, but had their parallel in early Chaldea. The key to their exact meaning is for the present lost; but we may hope that it will be recovered, and then there will be an end to the controversy between Geology and Genesis.