The Astronomy of the Bible Part 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: MERODACH AND TIAMAT.

[_To face p. 25._

Sculpture from the Palace of a.s.sur-n.a.z.ir-pel, King of a.s.syria. Now in the British Museum. Damaged by fire. Supposed to represent the defeat of Tiamat by Merodach.]

CHAPTER III

THE DEEP

The second verse of Genesis states, "And the earth was without form and void [_i. e._ waste and empty] and darkness was upon the face of the deep." The word _tehom_, here translated _deep_, has been used to support the theory that the Hebrews derived their Creation story from one which, when exiles in Babylon, they heard from their conquerors. If this theory were substantiated, it would have such an important bearing upon the subject of the att.i.tude of the inspired writers towards the objects of nature, that a little s.p.a.ce must be spared for its examination.

The purpose of the first chapter of Genesis is to tell us that--

"In the beginning G.o.d created the heaven and the earth."

From it we learn that the universe and all the parts that make it up--all the different forms of energy, all the different forms of matter--are neither deities themselves, nor their embodiments and expressions, nor the work of conflicting deities. From it we learn that the universe is not self-existent, nor even (as the pantheist thinks of it) the expression of one vague, impersonal and unconscious, but all-pervading influence. It was not self-made; it did not exist from all eternity. It is not G.o.d, for G.o.d made it.

But the problem of its origin has exercised the minds of many nations beside the Hebrews, and an especial interest attaches to the solution arrived at by those nations who were near neighbours of the Hebrews and came of the same great Semitic stock.

From the nature of the case, accounts of the origin of the world cannot proceed from experience, or be the result of scientific experiment. They cannot form items of history, or arise from tradition. There are only two possible sources for them; one, Divine revelation; the other, the invention of men.

The account current amongst the Babylonians has been preserved to us by the Syrian writer Damascius, who gives it as follows:--

"But the Babylonians, like the rest of the Barbarians, pa.s.s over in silence the one principle of the Universe, and they const.i.tute two, Tavthe and Apason, making Apason the husband of Tavthe, and denominating her "the mother of the G.o.ds." And from these proceeds an only-begotten son, Mumis, which, I conceive, is no other than the intelligible world proceeding from the two principles. From them also another progeny is derived, Lakhe and Lakhos; and again a third, Kissare and a.s.soros, from which last three others proceed, Anos and Illinos and Aos. And of Aos and Dakhe is born a son called Belos, who, they say, is the fabricator of the world."[26:1]

The actual story, thus summarized by Damascius, was discovered by Mr.

George Smith, in the form of a long epic poem, on a series of tablets, brought from the royal library of Kouyunjik, or Nineveh, and he published them in 1875, in his book on _The Chaldean Account of Genesis_. None of the tablets were perfect; and of some only very small portions remain. But portions of other copies of the poem have been discovered in other localities, and it has been found possible to piece together satisfactorily a considerable section, so that a fair idea of the general scope of the poem has been given to us.

It opens with the introduction of a being, Tiamtu--the Tavthe of the account of Damascius,--who is regarded as the primeval mother of all things.

"When on high the heavens were unnamed, Beneath the earth bore not a name: The primeval ocean was their producer; Mummu Tiamtu was she who begot the whole of them.

Their waters in one united themselves, and The plains were not outlined, marshes were not to be seen.

When none of the G.o.ds had come forth, They bore no name, the fates (had not been determined) There were produced the G.o.ds (all of them)."[27:1]

The genealogy of the G.o.ds follows, and after a gap in the story, Tiamat, or Tiamtu, is represented as preparing for battle, "She who created everything . . . produced giant serpents." She chose one of the G.o.ds, Kingu, to be her husband and the general of her forces, and delivered to him the tablets of fate.

The second tablet shows the G.o.d Anar, angered at the threatening att.i.tude of Tiamat, and sending his son Anu to speak soothingly to her and calm her rage. But first Anu and then another G.o.d turned back baffled, and finally Merodach, the son of Ea, was asked to become the champion of the G.o.ds. Merodach gladly consented, but made good terms for himself. The G.o.ds were to a.s.sist him in every possible way by entrusting all their powers to him, and were to acknowledge him as first and chief of all. The G.o.ds in their extremity were nothing loth. They feasted Merodach and, when swollen with wine, endued him with all magical powers, and hailed him--

"Merodach, thou art he who is our avenger, (Over) the whole universe have we given thee the kingdom."[28:1]

At first the sight of his terrible enemy caused even Merodach to falter, but plucking up courage he advanced to meet her, caught her in his net, and, forcing an evil wind into her open mouth--

"He made the evil wind enter so that she could not close her lips.

The violence of the winds tortured her stomach, and her heart was prostrated and her mouth was twisted.

He swung the club, he shattered her stomach; he cut out her entrails; he over-mastered (her) heart; he bound her and ended her life.

He threw down her corpse; he stood upon it."[28:2]

The battle over and the enemy slain, Merodach considered how to dispose of the corpse.

"He strengthens his mind, he forms a clever plan, And he stripped her of her skin like a fish, according to his plan."[28:3]

Of one half of the corpse of Tiamat he formed the earth, and of the other half, the heavens. He then proceded to furnish the heavens and the earth with their respective equipments; the details of this work occupying apparently the fifth, sixth, and seventh tablets of the series.

Under ordinary circ.u.mstances such a legend as the foregoing would not have attracted much attention. It is as barbarous and unintelligent as any myth of Zulu or Fijian. Strictly speaking, it is not a Creation myth at all. Tiamat and her serpent-brood and the G.o.ds are all existent before Merodach commences his work, and all that the G.o.d effects is a reconstruction of the world. The method of this reconstruction possesses no features superior to those of the Creation myths of other barbarous nations. Our own Scandinavian ancestors had a similar one, the setting of which was certainly not inferior to the grotesque battle of Merodach with Tiamat. The prose Edda tells us that the first man, Bur, was the father of Bor, who was in turn the father of Odin and his two brothers Vili and Ve. These sons of Bor slew Ymir, the old frost giant.

"They dragged the body of Ymir into the middle of Ginnungagap, and of it formed the earth. From Ymir's blood they made the sea and waters; from his flesh, the land; from his bones, the mountains; and his teeth and jaws, together with some bits of broken bones, served them to make the stones and pebbles."

It will be seen that there is a remarkable likeness between the Babylonian and Scandinavian myths in the central and essential feature of each, viz. the way in which the world is supposed to have been built up by the G.o.ds from the fragments of the anatomy of a huge primaeval monster. Yet it is not urged that there is any direct genetic connection between the two; that the Babylonians either taught their legend to the Scandinavians or learnt it from them.

Under ordinary circ.u.mstances it would hardly have occurred to any one to try to derive the monotheistic narrative of Gen. i. from either of these pagan myths, crowded as they are with uncouth and barbarous details. But it happened that Mr. George Smith, who brought to light the a.s.syrian Creation tablets, brought also to light a Babylonian account of the Flood, which had a large number of features in common with the narrative of Gen. vi.-ix. The actual resemblance between the two Deluge narratives has caused a resemblance to be imagined between the two Creation narratives. It has been well brought out in some of the later comments of a.s.syriologists that, so far from there being any resemblance in the Babylonian legend to the narrative in Genesis, the two accounts differ _in toto_. Mr. T. G. Pinches, for example, points out that in the Babylonian account there is--

"No direct statement of the creation of the heavens and the earth;

"No systematic division of the things created into groups and cla.s.ses, such as is found in Genesis;

"No reference to the Days of Creation;

"No appearance of the Deity as the first and only cause of the existence of things."[30:1]

Indeed, in the Babylonian account, "the heavens and the earth are represented as existing, though in a chaotic form, from the first."

Yet on this purely imaginary resemblance between the Biblical and Babylonian Creation narratives the legend has been founded "that the introductory chapters of the Book of Genesis present to us the Hebrew version of a mythology common to many of the Semitic peoples." And the legend has been yet further developed, until writers of the standing of Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch have claimed that the Genesis narrative was _borrowed_ from the Babylonian, though "the priestly scholar who composed Genesis, chapter i. endeavoured of course to remove all possible mythological features of this Creation story."[31:1]

If the Hebrew priest did borrow from the Babylonian myth, what was it that he borrowed? Not the existence of sea and land, of sun and moon, of plants and animals, of birds and beasts and fishes. For surely the Hebrew may be credited with knowing this much of himself, without any need for a transportation to Babylon to learn it. "In writing an account of the Creation, statements as to what are the things created must of necessity be inserted,"[31:2] whenever, wherever, and by whomsoever that account is written.

What else, then, is there common to the two accounts? _Tiamat_ is the name given to the Babylonian mother of the universe, the dragon of the deep; and in Genesis it is written that "darkness was upon the face of the _deep_ (_tehom_)."

Here, and here only, is a point of possible connection; but if it be evidence of a connection, what kind of a connection does it imply? It implies that the Babylonian based his barbarous myth upon the Hebrew narrative. There is no other possible way of interpreting the connection,--if connection there be.

The Hebrew word would seem to mean, etymologically, "_surges_,"

"_storm-tossed waters_,"--"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy waterspouts." Our word "_deep_" is apt to give us the idea of stillness--we have the proverb, "Still waters run deep,"--whereas in some instances _tehom_ is used in Scripture of waters which were certainly shallow, as, for instance, those pa.s.sed through by Israel at the Red Sea:--

"Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath He cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The _depths_ have covered them."

In other pa.s.sages the words used in our Authorized Version, "_deep_" or "_depths_," give the correct signification.

But deep waters, or waters in commotion, are in either case natural objects. We get the word _tehom_ used continually in Scripture in a perfectly matter-of-fact way, where there is no possibility of personification or myth being intended. Tiamat, on the contrary, the Babylonian dragon of the waters, is a mythological personification. Now the natural object must come first. It never yet has been the case that a nation has gained its knowledge of a perfectly common natural object by de-mythologizing one of the mythological personifications of another nation. The Israelites did not learn about _tehom_, the surging water of the Red Sea, that rolled over the Egyptians in their sight, from any Babylonian fable of a dragon of the waters, read by their descendants hundreds of years later.

Yet further, the Babylonian account of Creation is comparatively late; the Hebrew account, as certainly, comparatively early. It is not merely that the actual cuneiform tablets are of date about 700 B.C., coming as they do from the Kouyunjik mound, the ruins of the palace of Sennacherib and a.s.surbanipal, built about that date. The poem itself, as Prof. Sayce has pointed out, indicates, by the peculiar pre-eminence given in it to Merodach, that it is of late composition. It was late in the history of Babylon that Merodach was adopted as the supreme deity. The astronomical references in the poem are more conclusive still, for, as will be shown later on, they point to a development of astronomy that cannot be dated earlier than 700 B.C.

On the other hand, the first chapter of Genesis was composed very early.

The references to the heavenly bodies in verse 16 bear the marks of the most primitive condition possible of astronomy. The heavenly bodies are simply the greater light, the lesser light, and the stars--the last being introduced quite parenthetically. It is the simplest reference to the heavenly bodies that is made in Scripture, or that, indeed, could be made.

There may well have been Babylonians who held higher conceptions of G.o.d and nature than those given in the Tiamat myth. It is certain that very many Hebrews fell short of the teaching conveyed in the first chapter of Genesis. But the fact remains that the one nation preserved the Tiamat myth, the other the narrative of Genesis, and each counted its own Creation story sacred. We can only rightly judge the two nations by what they valued. Thus judged, the Hebrew nation stands as high above the Babylonian in intelligence, as well as in faith, as the first chapter of Genesis is above the Tiamat myth.