Hebrew and Babylonian traditions; the Haskell lectures, delivered at Oberlin college in 1913, and since rev. and enl.

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

When the kind invitation was extended to me by the authorities of Oberlin College to become the Haskell Lecturer for 1913, I welcomed the opportunity to bring to a temporary close studies on the relationship between Hebrews and Babylonians that had occupied me, though with prolonged interruptions, for a long term of years. Impressed by the fact that the civilisation of the Hebrews and Babylonians moved along such different lines, despite the many features they had in common, I felt that the real problem involved in a comparative study of Hebrew and Babylonian folk-tales, beliefs, religious practices, and modes of thought was to determine the factor or factors that led to such entirely different issues in the case of the two peoples. Archaeological research, in combination with the ascertained and generally accepted results of biblical studies, had demonstrated the close bond existing between Hebrew and Babylonian traditions — to use a conveniently comprehensive term — beyond question. It is idle at this stage to deny either the composite character of the stories in the early chapters of Genesis, or the late date at which they must have received their present form; it is equally futile to deny the factor of evolution in the developviii PREFACE

ment of religious ideas among the Hebrews. The evidence is overwhelming; and whether we turn to the legal sections of the Pentateuch, or to the historical records, or to the Prophets and Psalms, we see everywhere the traces of a long-continued process of thought with many windings and turns, culminating in ethical monotheism, by which I mean a view of divine government based on a spiritual and ethical interpretation of the God-idea.

On the other hand, the rediscovery of Babylonia and Assyria through the excavations conducted on the sites of ancient cities in the Euphrates Valley and along the banks of the Tigris has placed at the disposal of students an enormous mass of material which has thrown much light on the origin of the traditions and early beliefs of the Hebrews; it has demonstrated that Hebrew history is unintelligible without constant recourse to the data obtained from cuneiform literature. Hebrews and Babylonians start out on their careers with much in common; they share traditions regarding the manner in which the world came into being, they have common traditions regarding a disastrous Deluge that swept over the part of the world known to them. The source of the antediluvian chronology of the Bible is to be sought in traditions current in the Euphrates Valley; and there is a steady stream of influence emanating more particularly from Babylonia from a very early period onward that helps to maintain a close association with beliefs and practices among the Hebrews up to the time when

PREFACE ix

the latter begin to move in an entirely different and novel direction. To be sure, there are other influences at work in the early history of the Hebrews besides those that are to be traced to Babylonia and Assyria. Some of the tribes forming part of the confederacy of the Bene Israel had at one time much in common with the nomad Arabs, and all of them with the agricultural Canaanites whom they gradually dispossessed, but who passed on to the conquerors many of their religious practices. Egyptian culture also must have had some share in bringing about conditions that arose in Palestine, but Babylonia by virtue of early associations and by almost continuous contact, though closer at some periods than at others, is the most important element in that phase of Hebrew life and thought with which we are concerned in this work.

Accepting the ascertained results of modern research, the question, then, with which we are confronted is to account for the tremendous influence exerted by Hebrew traditions in the form finally given to them, and to explain why the religious thought and practices of the Hebrews became, with the heritage of Greek and Roman culture, the foundation structure on which the superstructure of modern civilisation has been erected. That fact is as undeniable as are the postulates of biblical criticism and of archaeological investigations.

Despite the many essays, monographs, and larger works that have appeared during the past three decades on the various phases of the relationship

X PREFACE

existing between Hebrews and Babylonians, I feel that there is room and need for a work like this one, devoted primarily to pointing out the differences between Babylonian myths, beliefs, and practices, and the final form assumed by corresponding Hebrew traditions, despite the circumstance that these traditions are to be traced back to the same source which gave rise to the Babylonian traditions as we find them in the literature of Babylonia and of the ofi^shoot of Babylonia — ^Assyria.

This, then, is my purpose as set forth more fully in the first chapter and as emphasised in all of the chapters. It is quite likely that the book will not be pleasing to "extremists," whether of the ultraconservative type, who present a resolute front against departures from traditional views regarding the books of the Old Testament, or of the equally rigid ultra-unemotional type who, with a limited historical horizon, are unable to enter sympathetically into the unfolding of the religious thought of a people and are inclined to belittle the value of religious beliefs as a factor in human evolution, for fear of appearing to countenance a religious attitude with which they themselves are not in accord. One can readily understand how even learned and conscientious scholars through a determination to cling to certain views can acquire an attitude of mind which prevents them from weighing evidence judiciously and fairly. This observation applies particularly to those who deceive themselves by imagining that they are pursuing studies in an open-minded

PREFACE xi

spirit, whereas in reality they are merely seeking a confirmation of views which they hold quite independently of their studies, and generally held antecedent to any investigation. But the observation may be extended also to scholars of a more scientific type who, in a spirit of reaction against views which they have come to regard as untenable, fail to penetrate into the depths of their subject because too much absorbed in the externalities — in textual criticism, or in investigations of special points without reference to the necessary relationship of even the infinitesimal parts of a subject to the subject as a whole.

Whatever may be the verdict pronounced on the method followed in my work and on the results reached by me through this method, I feel that I may assure my readers that I have approached the many diflScult and delicate themes included in this work in a spirit of pure historical inquiry, and in a frame of mind free from bias, without any predilections for any special theological postulates. Indeed, I have aimed to keep my own position towards the problems presented by the study of ancient religions in the background, except in so far as my personal creed includes a sympathetic attitude towards the struggle of man everj^where and at all times to reach out to an understanding of the mysteries by which he is surrounded — mysteries that even in early stages of culture are dimly perceived, and that become more clearly defined and correspondingly more profound as with enlarged experience and with increasing knowledge man realises how much must xii PREFACE

always remain for him within the shadow of the unknown and the unknowable — ^the dark impenetrable territory beyond the border line, to which Job's paradox (lo : 22) may be applied, "where even light is as darkness."

Naturally, in a single course of five lectures only certain phases of the large topic could be treated. I chose those which seemed to be of greatest importance and which seemed best adapted to illustrate the different directions taken by Hebrew and Babylonian traditions, namely, the views about Creation, the relationship existing between the Hebrew and Babylonian Sabbath, the unfolding of behefs regarding the after-life, and a survey of Hebrew and Baby- Ionian ethics. These aspects are sufficiently diverse to test the application of the main thesis in the investigation. Perhaps on another occasion I shall take up in the same way a comparative study of Hebrew and Babylonian legislation, of sacrificial rites, of divination practices, of marriage and funeral customs, and of the position of woman, all of which are calculated to illustrate the distinctive features of each of the two civilisations. Since, however, in the course of the subjects treated in the five chapters, I had occasion to refer several times to the biblical and Babylonian narratives of the Deluge, I have thought it useful both on this account and because it was George Smith's discovery in 1872 of a fragment of the Babylonian Deluge story^ that

^Read before the Society of Biblical Archasology at the memorable meeting on December 3, 1872, and published in the Transactions of the Society, vol. II, pp. 213-234.

PREFACE xiii

originated the study of Babylonian and Hebrew traditions, to add in an appendix an analysis with copious extracts of the various versions of the Baby- Ionian tale regarding the great catastrophe that overwhelmed mankind, and then to set forth as an illustration of the modern method of biblical study the two accounts of the Deluge in Genesis that have been dovetailed into a continuous narrative. Incidental remarks and a summary at the close of this Appendix will show how the point of view from which the ancient tradition is regarded in its transformed garb in Genesis is in keeping with the process to be detected in the biblical Creation stories and in other traditions, such as the tale of man's forfeiture of Paradise. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Arno Poebel for his kindness in placing at my disposal the advance sheets of his forthcoming publication of Sumerian texts containing the oldest known versions of both the Creation and Deluge myths of ancient Babylonia. These texts Dr. Poebel discovered among the tablets found at Nippur by the expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, and which are now in the Museum of Archaeology of the University. Dr. Poebel has been actively at work since the summer of 191 2 on the valuable material unearthed at Nippur, and his publication which is to appear in several volumes and which will greatly advance also our knowledge of Sumerian, the ancient non-Semitic speech of the Euphrates Valley, is being looked forward to with great interest. His generosity in allowing me to xiv PREFACE

utilise the results of his labours even before their formal appearance has enabled me, in the Appendix, to place before my readers the relationship of the oldest Babylonian version of the Deluge to the latest one as embodied in the Gilgamesh Epic — the most notable literary production of Babylonia.

My thanks are also due, as on all former occasions, to my wife, who has carefully read the whole of the manuscript as well as the proofs. Traces of her valuable suggestions are to be found on almost every page. Realising her conscientious devotion to a most unselfish task, I feel how inadequate the mere word of acknowledgment is to convey my feelings of gratitude towards her.

I am also under obligations to my dear friend and colleague, Professor James A. Montgomery, of the University of Pennsylvania, for his kindness in reading a proof of the entire book, and in letting me have the benefit of his valuable criticisms and suggestions. My pupil. Dr. B. B. Charles, now instructor of Semitic languages at the University of Pennsylvania, kindly undertook to prepare the index for the volume, and he has carried out the task in the same careful manner that marked his work on a former occasion. I feel deeply grateful to him for transferring this task from my shoulders to his more youthful ones. The lectures appear here in an entirely revised and considerably enlarged form from that originally given to them for oral delivery. In order to adapt them to a reading public, I have also in all except a few instances removed the ear-

PREFACE XV

marks of the lecture style, but I trust that if I shall be fortunate enough to have among my readers some who listened so sympathetically to the spoken word, they will recognise that the spirit has not been altered. They will also find questions which could be only partially discussed in the lectures more fully treated in the enlarged book. For me the week spent amidst the charming surroundings of OberUn College while delivering the lectures will remain always a happy recollection. I feel under special obligations to Professor Albert T. Swing, on whom fell the burden of making the arrangements for these lectures, and who contributed so much to the pleasure of my stay.

Lastly, I regard it as a privilege to be permitted to dedicate this volume to a dear and highly esteemed friend, whose friendship has been a source of happiness and of strength to me during a long term of years.

Morris Jastrow, Jr.

University of Pennsylvania, December, 1913.

Contents

CHAPTER

I. Relations between Hebrews and Babylonians

II. The Hebrew and Babylonian Accounts of

Chapter I Relations Between Hebrews And Babylonians

It will be my main aim in this investigation to set forth some of the aspects presented by a comparison of two civilisations that have much in common, that were developed by peoples belonging in part to the same stock, and that have both exercised a wide influence, though in totally different directions. Despite many features in common, each of these civilisations went its own way, the one unfolding great political strength, supported by an elaborate military organisation, and producing, as outward expressions of this strength, monuments of gigantic proportions, — temples and palaces filled with works of art; it built great cities, created an extensive commerce, and made certain permanent contributions to the thought and achievements of mankind; the other, with little of outward display, politically insignificant, working out its destiny with

apparently no thought of any extension of its influence beyond narrow boundaries, yet becoming one of the most potent factors in the religious history of mankind. The problem involved in a comparison between the Hebrew civilisation and the Euphratean culture, as we may briefly designate the Babylonian-Assyrian civilisation, since Assyria is merely an extension of the impulse that arose in the south and extended to the north, is to determine the point of separation between the two that led to such totally different issues. Why is it — ^we may properly ask — that with agreement in regard to many traditions, with religious ideas and practices that at one time bore a close resemblance to one another, with a general view of life, of divine government, of the fate of man after death, of practical ethics at the outset not sharply differentiated from one another, the courses taken by Hebrew and Babylonian traditions were so dissimilar. For it is to the different courses taken by this common stock of traditional ideas and practices that the contrast presented by Hebrews and Babylonians is to be traced — a contrast no less striking than the points of resemblance that once existed between the two civilisations. These resemblances have often been treated during the past decades, both in special investigations and in general summaries. They have been discussed from various points of view: on the one hand, by critics whose aim appeared to have been to show the dependence of Hebrew ideas upon those of Babylonia and Assyria; and on the other, by those whose view-point was directed towards securing confirmation of the data presented by biblical records.

I have little sympathy with either mode of treatment. To extend the claims of Babylonian-Assyrian civilisation so as to make Hebrew achievements merely a pale reflection of the picture presented by Euphratean culture is to forfeit the possibility of any real understanding of the spirit of Hebrew history, is to miss the point of that history, and to abandon the key that will enable us to solve the problem involved in the profound influence exerted by the religious thought of the Hebrews. On the other hand, to press the apologetic attitude to the extent of assuming the unapproachable quality of the entire Old Testament without distinguishing between incidental and essential elements, and to carry on our historical research merely with a purpose of finding a confirmation of preconceived points of view, is to place the Old Testament in a false light and to pursue a method that is both vicious and disingenuous. We must frankly and unreservedly take as our starting-point in a comparative study of Babylonian and Hebrew traditions, the factor of evolution, by which I mean the assumption of a progress in religious thought, and apply that factor to Hebrew history precisely in the same manner and to the same degree as to the history of Babylonia and Assyria. The Hebrews were subject to outside influences in precisely the same manner and to the same degree as were all other ethnic groups. They begin their career with the same mental equipment as other nations; the differentiating factor in Hebrew history is to be found in the outcome and not in anything that has to do with its beginnings.

That history is unfolded under the same laws to be observed elsewhere in the annals of a people. What gives to the history of the Hebrews its unique quality from a certain period is the introduction of an element that, as an expression of the peculiar genius of the people, gradually changes the entire aspect of their attitude towards life. Gradual growth must be assumed and not a sudden departure from the normal — gradual growth in the political and social life and in the religious life as well. We can trace this religious growth in the pages of the Old Testament with the same definiteness that we can follow the political and social unfolding of the people, and even where our material is insufficient for following this evolution in detail, we must nevertheless assume such evolution or involve ourselves in hopeless difficulties from which we can extract ourselves only by sophistry or by some other form of vicious reasoning. It will therefore be one of my aims to elucidate the special and peculiar element in Hebrew history which, manifesting itself in diverse ways, leads to a wide deflection of Hebrew traditions from their Babylonian counterparts. Our comparative study will be directed chiefly towards an elucidation of the ultimate differences that arise between Hebrew and Babylonian points of view despite earlier and very noticeable points of agreement; and I venture to think that the real value of a comparative study of any kind lies in bringing out differences. Only a superficial view of comparisons stops at pointing out resemblances.

Gradual growth involves survivals, that is to say, indications of older views and customs carried over into later periods. Evolution means not only transformations through historical processes, but a mixture of old and new. It will therefore be also part of my purpose to trace the process of growth in both Hebrew and Babylonian traditions, and to show in how far older views were replaced, how far they survived, and how, combined with new thought, they gave rise to new religious practices.

II

It was to be foreseen at an early stage in the exploration of Babylonian and Assyrian cities — the work of the last seventy years* — and in the study of the material unearthed, that the bearings of this material upon Hebrew traditions, on Hebrew history, and on Hebrew religious ideas would be manifold and important. Hebrew traditions carried back the beginnings of the Hebrews to settlements in the Euphrates Valley. Nay more, the first home of mankind was fixed in this region, as is sufficiently evidenced by the mention of two rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris, watering the Garden of Eden,

' A full account of these explorations will be found in chapter I of a forthcoming work of the author, The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria.

where the first man and his consort were placed. A writer intent upon giving an answer to two fundamental questions, how mankind came to be dispersed over the face of the globe, and why there are so many different languages,^ tells the curious tale in the tenth chapter of Genesis — itself a combination of two stories, one about the building of a city, the other of a high tower — ^which represents the dispersion as radiating from the city of Babylon in the land of Shinar (a general term for the Euphrates Valley) as a centre, and the confusion of languages as a device of Yahweh to prevent the people from carrying out their design to build the tower. The city of Babylon symbolised for the writer the entire civilisation of the Euphrates Valley. The tower that the writer had in mind was a characteristic feature of the sacred architecture in the Euphrates Valley — the staged construction with broad terraces, heaped one above the other in imitation of a mountain, with a winding road leading to the top where the deity to whom the tower was dedicated had his seat.* The story thus not only takes us back to Babylonia, but represents a characteristic protest of Old Testament writers against Babylonish customs. It voices the feelings of these writers towards Babylonia as a wicked place, as a source of mankind's misfortunes and ills.

The contact between the Euphrates Valley and Palestine is maintained in Hebrew traditions after

' See below, p. $6.

^ See Jastrow, Aspects oj Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 282 seq.

the migration of the Terahites from Ur and Haran. Abraham sends his servant to his old home in order to obtain a wife for his son from there — an indication of the persistency of the tradition which assumed close bonds between the Hebrew settlements in Palestine and the Euphrates Valley. From the Babylonian side we find this relationship in the political sense confirmed; for an ancient conqueror, Sargon, who is to be placed somewhere around 2600 B. C, extends his sway to the western lands comprised under the name of Amurru, which, in the broad sense, included Palestine. A thousand years later we find the Babylonian language as the current medium of diplomatic exchange between Palestine and Egypt. The reference to a "cloak of Shinar" (Jos. 7 : 21) in the account of the Hebrew conquest of Jericho is an interesting testimony to commercial intercourse between Palestine and Babylonia; and I need hardly remind you of the way in which Assyria and Babylonia interfered with the fortunes of the Hebrew kingdoms, from the middle of the ninth century on, leading directly to the destruction of both. It was therefore a moment of intense interest (though it ought not to have been a surprise) when in the historical annals found in the remains of Babylonian and Assyrian cities scholars began to read of these poUtical relations. Subsequently, traditions concerned with the Creation of the world and with a disastrous Deluge that recalled thie narratives in the early chapters of Genesis began to come to light.

Interest in Babylonian-Assyrian research was increased when, on penetrating still deeper into the religious literature and religious customs of Babylonia and Assyria, institutions and rites were revealed for which parallels could be found in the pages of the Old Testament, including views regarding life after death and hymns expressive of ideas that reminded us of what was found in biblical psalms, and that were couched in phrases strikingly similar to biblical parlance. It is with this material that we are chiefly concerned in this investigation; but, in order to understand its real bearings, we must stop for a few moments to consider the origin and character of Babylonian civilisation which spread from the south — the Euphrates Valley — to the north, or to what was known as Assyria. The impulse to the development of a high degree of culture in the Euphrates Valley came from the mixture of two heterogeneous races — Semites, whose oldest designation appears to have been Akkadians, and a non-Semitic people known as Sumerians, who gave their name to the valley which survives, in a somewhat distorted form, as Shinar in the book of Genesis. Whether the Semites or the non-Semites were the first settlers is a question which in the present state of our knowledge cannot be determined. The indications are — such, at least, is my view^ — that the Semites were the first to arrive and there are reasons for beheving that they came from the northeastern or northwestern region known as

' Following Eduard Meyer, Sumerier und Semiten in Babylonien, p.m.

Amurru, though the majority of scholars still incline to central Arabia as the oldest centre from which Semitic hordes first entered the valley. These Semites, taking up a settled form of life in exchange for earlier nomadic habits, cultivated the soil and had probably made some advances on the road to civilisation when the Sumerians, entering either from the northwestern or from the northeastern mountainous districts, conquered the country. What the state of Sumerian civilisation was at the time is also a pure matter of conjecture. The conquerors must have been superior to the Semites, for in the oldest period to which our sources at present take us, we find the Sumerians in more or less complete control. The language of the oldest historical inscriptions is Sumerian, the commercial documents down to about 2000 B. C. are likewise largely in Sumerian. To this oldest period belong Sumerian votive inscriptions, Sumerian hymns and lamentations, rituals appealing to the gods to desist from their wrath which had manifested itself in some political catastrophe or in havoc wrought by destructive storms; and it is a fair inference that the script developing from a pictorial or hieroglyphic form of writing was the invention of the Sumerians, though developed with Semitic co-operation. For, even in this earliest period, Semitic influences may be detected. We find Semitic names and Semitic words in very early inscriptions. The Sumerians brought their gods with them but, as always happened in the case of conquests in early days, the conquerors also adopted the gods of the region into which they came and transformed the character of their own deities to conform to the new conditions by which they were surrounded.

One of the oldest centres of Sumerian settlements that acquired the rank of a reUgious as well as of a political capital was Nippur. The patron deity of Nippur, Enlil (or ElUl), was brought there by the Sumerians from their mountain homes, and, like most gods who have their seat on mountain tops, was a personification of the storms and tempests, of the thunder and the lightning. Transferred to a valley in which agriculture was the mainstay of the population, Enlil was associated with an earlier deity, Enmasht^ — commonly spoken of as Ninib — ^who presided over vegetation and the fertility of the soil. Enlil, as the god of the conquerors, becomes the father, and Enmasht the son. This relationship merely mirrors the superiority of the newcomer who takes on the traits of Enmasht, and as the head of the pantheon receives the attributes most needed by a deity in whose hands the welfare of an agricultural population lay. In this way then and in various others, the religion of the Sumerians is transformed through adaptation to their new surroundings, a transformation that extends to the adoption into their pantheon of deities already worshipped in the district to which they had come, and which carries with it the adoption of religious rites, festivals, and forms of appeal suitable to agricultural communi- ' See Clay, Amurru, p. 121.

ties. Both elements of the population, therefore, contribute to the further unfolding of religious ideas and customs, just as the general advance in civilisation is due to mutual co-operation and mutual influence, although the one element remained for a long time the predominating factor. The result is a Sumero-Akkadian civilisation arising from the stimulus of one ethnic group meeting another. The observation has general application that a high order of civilisation arises only through the combination of two or more ethnic factors. The mixture of races because of this mutual stimulus always produces a higher type of culture than is brought about by a race that holds itself aloof from others. An absolutely pure race probably does not exist. If it did, it is safe to predict that it would not proceed far along the road of civilisation without dying of inanition. The great and the greatest achievements of mankind in the domain of culture, in government, in art, in literature, in philosophic thought, and in scholarship have been accomplished by the mixed races — by the Greeks with the admixture of Asiatic elements; by the Romans with the admixture of the Etruscans as the foreign mass to leaven the Italic stock; by the Egyptians, a mixture of Hamitic and Semitic groups. Even among the ancient Hebrews we encounter the admixture of foreign groups which include Hittite elements. The Pentateuchal Codes protest against the commingling with the "seven" nations as they are conventionally termed, with an insistency that proves the extent to which the admixture had proceeded.

The predominance of the Sumerian excment begins to wane about the middle of the third millennium B. C, perhaps already some centuries earlier. The impending change in control manifests itself at first by the breaking up of the Euphrates Valley into separate districts, each grouped around some city — as a political and reUgious centre — no one of which seemed strong enough to hold the others under its control.^ At most, we now find one or the other of these districts or states exercising a jurisdiction over some adjoining one, and this for a limited period, to be followed by a reversal that brings a rival state more prominently forward. The struggle comes to a head in a more sharply accentuated rivalry between Sumerian and Akkadiaii settlements, the former found chiefly in the more southern sections, the latter more towards the north, though the geographical division is not absolute. Sargon, with his capital at Agade, a city not far from Babylon, is the first Semite to establish a strong empire; it is he who apparently introduces the policy of world-conquest which becomes the aim of Babylonian and more particularly of Assyrian rulers. Sargon spreads his victorious arms in all directions and founds a real empire, though of short duration — a kingdom of "the four quarters of the world," as it is officially designated. The in-