Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition by L.W. King

Author:L.W. King [King, L.W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781596057487
Barnesnoble:
Published: 2006-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

V. THE FLOOD, THE ESCAPE OF THE GREAT

BOAT, AND THE SACRIFICE TO THE SUN-GOD

The missing portion of the Fourth Column must have described Ziusudu’s

building of his great boat in order to escape the Deluge, for at the beginning of

the Fifth Column we are in the middle of the Deluge itself. The column begins:

All the mighty wind-storms together blew,

The flood… raged.

When for seven days, for seven nights,

The flood had overwhelmed the land

When the wind-storm had driven the great boat over the mighty

waters,

The Sun-god came forth, shedding light over heaven and earth.

Ziusudu opened the opening of the great boat;

The light of the hero, the Sun-god, (he) causes to enter into the

interior(?) of the great boat.

Ziusudu, the king,

Bows himself down before the Sun-god;

The king sacrifices an ox, a sheep he slaughters(?).

The connected text of the column then breaks off, only a sign or two

remaining of the following half-dozen lines. It will be seen that in the eleven lines that are preserved we have several close parallels to the Babylonian Version

and some equally striking differences. While attempting to define the latter, it will be well to point out how close the resemblances are, and at the same time to

draw a comparison between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions of this part

of the story and the corresponding Hebrew accounts.

Here, as in the Babylonian Version, the Flood is accompanied by hurricanes of

wind, though in the latter the description is worked up in considerable detail. We

there read(1) that at the appointed time the ruler of the darkness at eventide sent a heavy rain. Ut-napishtim saw its beginning, but fearing to watch the storm, he

entered the interior of the ship by Ea’s instructions, closed the door, and handed

over the direction of the vessel to the pilot Puzur-Amurri. Later a thunder-storm

and hurricane added their terrors to the deluge. For at early dawn a black cloud

came up from the horizon, Adad the Storm-god thundering in its midst, and his

heralds, Nabû and Sharru, flying over mountain and plain. Nergal tore away the

ship’s anchor, while Ninib directed the storm; the Anunnaki carried their lightning-torches and lit up the land with their brightness; the whirlwind of the

Storm-god reached the heavens, and all light was turned into darkness. The storm raged the whole day, covering mountain and people with water.(2) No man

beheld his fellow; the gods themselves were afraid, so that they retreated into the

highest heaven, where they crouched down, cowering like dogs. Then follows the lamentation of Ishtar, to which reference has already been made, the goddess

reproaching herself for the part she had taken in the destruction of her people.

This section of the Semitic narrative closes with the picture of the gods weeping

with her, sitting bowed down with their lips pressed together.

(1) Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 90 ff.

(2) In the Atrakhasis version, dated in the reign of

Ammizaduga, Col. I, l. 5, contains a reference to the “cry”

of men when Adad the Storm-god, slays them with his flood.

It is probable that the Sumerian Version, in the missing portion of its Fourth

Column, contained some account of Ziusudu’s entry into his boat; and this may

have been preceded, as in the Gilgamesh Epic, by a reference to “the living seed of every kind”, or at any rate to “the four-legged creatures of the field”, and to his personal possessions, with which we may assume he had previously loaded

it. But in the Fifth Column we have no mention of the pilot or of any other companions who may have accompanied the king; and we shall see that the Sixth Column contains no reference to Ziusudu’s wife. The description of the storm may have begun with the closing lines of the Fourth Column, though it is

also quite possible that the first line of the Fifth Column actually begins the account. However that may be, and in spite of the poetic imagery of the Semitic

Babylonian narrative, the general character of the catastrophe is the same in both

versions.

We find an equally close parallel, between the Sumerian and Babylonian

accounts, in the duration of the storm which accompanied the Flood, as will be

seen by printing the two versions together:(3)

SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION

When for seven days, for seven For six days and nights

nights,

The flood had overwhelmed the The wind blew, the flood, the

land, tempest overwhelmed the land.

When the wind-storm had driven When the seventh day drew near,

the great boat over the the tempest, the flood, ceased

mighty waters, from the battle

In which it had fought like a

host.

The Sun-god came forth shedding Then the sea rested and was

light over heaven and earth. still, and the wind-storm, the

flood, ceased.

(3) Col. V, ll. 3-6 are here compared with Gilg. Epic, XI,

ll. 128-32.

The two narratives do not precisely agree as to the duration of the storm, for

while in the Sumerian account the storm lasts seven days and seven nights, in the

Semitic-Babylonian Version it lasts only six days and nights, ceasing at dawn on

the seventh day. The difference, however, is immaterial when we compare these estimates with those of the Hebrew Versions, the older of which speaks of forty

days’ rain, while the later version represents the Flood as rising for no less than a hundred and fifty days.

The close parallel between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions is not,

however, confined to subject-matter, but here, even extends to some of the words

and phrases employed. It has already been noted that the Sumerian term

employed for “flood” or “deluge” is the attested equivalent of the Semitic word; and it may now be added that the word which may be rendered “great boat” or

“great ship” in the Sumerian text is the same word, though partly expressed by variant characters, which occurs in the early Semitic fragment of the Deluge story from Nippur.(1) In the Gilgamesh Epic, on the other hand, the ordinary ideogram for “vessel” or “ship”(2) is employed, though the great size of the vessel is there indicated, as in Berossus and the later Hebrew Version, by detailed measurements. Moreover, the Sumerian and Semitic verbs, which are employed in the parallel passages quoted above for the “overwhelming” of the land, are given as synonyms in a late syllabary, while in another explanatory text

the Sumerian verb is explained as applying to the destructive action of a flood.

(3) Such close linguistic parallels are instructive as furnishing additional proof, if it were needed, of the dependence of the Semitic-Babylonian and Assyrian

Versions upon Sumerian originals.

(1) The Sumerian word is (gish)ma-gur-gur, corresponding

to the term written in the early Semitic fragment, l. 8, as

(isu)ma-gur-gur, which is probably to be read under its

Semitized form magurgurru. In l. 6 of that fragment the

vessel is referred to under the synonymous expression

(isu)elippu ra-be-tu, “a great ship”.

(2) i.e. (GISH)MA, the first element in the Sumerian word,

read in Semitic Babylonian as elippu, “ship”; when

employed in the early Semitic fragment it is qualified by

the adj. ra-be-tu, “great”. There is no justification for

assuming, with Prof. Hilbrecht, that a measurement of the

vessel was given in l. 7 of the early Semitic fragment.

(3) The Sumerian verb ur, which is employed in l. 2 of the

Fifth Column in the expression ba-an-da-ab-ur-ur,

translated as “raged”, occurs again in l. 4 in the phrase

kalam-ma ba-ur-ra, “had overwhelmed the land”. That we are

justified in regarding the latter phrase as the original of

the Semitic i-sap-pan mâta (Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 129) is

proved by the equation Sum. ur-ur = Sem. sa-pa-nu (Rawlinson, W.A.I. , Vol. V, pl.

42, l. 54 c) and by the

explanation Sum. ur-ur = Sem. sa-ba-tu sa a-bu-bi, i.e.

” ur-ur = to smite, of a flood” ( Cun. Texts, Pt. XII, pl.

50, Obv., l. 23); cf. Poebel, Hist. Texts, p. 54, n. 1.

It may be worth while to pause for a moment in our study of the text, in order

to inquire what kind of boat it was in which Ziusudu escaped the Flood. It is

only called “a great boat” or “a great ship” in the text, and this term, as we have noted, was taken over, semitized, and literally translated in an early Semitic-Babylonian Version. But the Gilgamesh Epic, representing the later Semitic-Babylonian Version, supplies fuller details, which have not, however, been satisfactorily explained. Either the obvious meaning of the description and figures there given has been ignored, or the measurements have been applied to a

central structure placed upon a hull, much on the lines of a modern “house-boat”

or the conventional Noah’s ark.(1) For the latter interpretation the text itself affords no justification. The statement is definitely made that the length and breadth of the vessel itself are to be the same;(2) and a later passage gives ten gar for the height of its sides and ten gar for the breadth of its deck.(3) This description has been taken to imply a square box-like structure, which, in order

to be seaworthy, must be placed on a conjectured hull.

(1) Cf., e.g., Jastrow, Hebr. and Bab. Trad. , p. 329.

(2) Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 28-30.

(3) L. 58 f. The gar contained twelve cubits, so that the

vessel would have measured 120 cubits each way; taking the

Babylonian cubit, on the basis of Gudea’s scale, at 495 mm.

(cf. Thureau-Dangin, Journal Asiatique, Dix. Sér., t.

XIII, 1909, pp. 79 ff., 97), this would give a length,

breadth, and height of nearly 195 ft.

I do not think it has been noted in this connexion that a vessel, approximately

with the relative proportions of that described in the Gilgamesh Epic, is in constant use to-day on the lower Tigris and Euphrates. A kuffah,(1) the familiar pitched coracle of Baghdad, would provide an admirable model for the gigantic

vessel in which Ut-napishtim rode out the Deluge. “Without either stem or stern, quite round like a shield”—so Herodotus described the kuffah of his day;2() so, too, is it represented on Assyrian slabs from Nineveh, where we see it employed

for the transport of heavy building material;(3) its form and structure indeed suggest a prehistoric origin. The kuffah is one of those examples of perfect adjustment to conditions of use which cannot be improved. Any one who has travelled in one of these craft will agree that their storage capacity is immense,

for their circular form and steeply curved side allow every inch of space to be utilized. It is almost impossible to upset them, and their only disadvantage is lack of speed. For their guidance all that is required is a steersman with a paddle, as indicated in the Epic. It is true

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