mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ 
For complete access to all the files of this collection
	see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php 
==========================================================

Ledgends of Babylon and Egypt

by Leonard W. King

Preface

I n 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.

L. W. KING.

2. http://www.worldwideschool.org/