royal or official household, and the shepherd in charge of the temple sacrificial animals.11

These entries are made for each day of the month; but following the entry for the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days, there is written in some of the records an additional item, namely, "one khitpi," which word apparently means "offering";12 and in the others the words "one kid for an offering." There is, however, a variation in the days. Nine of the records have the same succession of seven days, but on the rest of the tablets the previous day is occasionally mentioned, as the 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th; and in one instance the 26th day. This would simply show that the kid for the offering was in some instances delivered on the day previous to the one appointed.

These tablets show the first actual observance of anything in Babylonia that suggests the existence of a parallel to the Sabbath. Moreover, it very probably is more than a parallel; we may have here proof of the observance of the Hebrew Sabbath in Babylonia; but by whom?

We know that Nebuchadnezzar carried Judah into captivity. We find that the nomenclature in Babylonia, following this event, contains many Hebrew names. The Murashû archives, a century later, are full of them.13 And we know also with what consideration Cyrus treated the foreign peoples of the land from the very beginning of his reign. In these tablets we find that from the fifth year of Cyrus, the keeper of the city's live stock at Erech, in addition to the five and occasionally more sheep, which he daily delivered to the official stable, and four and occasionally

"Clay, Miscellaneous Inscriptions 75 ff.

12 The only occurrence of this word known to the writer is on an Aramaic inscription found in the Serapaeum at Memphis; for which the translation "offerings" has been offered; cf. ibidem p. 77.

18 Clay, Business Documents of the Murashû Sons of Nippur.

more to the shepherd of the sacrificial animals, gave a kid for an "offering," on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days.

While it is not specified who received these four kids each month, knowing that thousands of Hebrews were in the land, it seems reasonable to conjecture that they were given to Hebrew menials who were in the employ of the court or temple, so that they could keep their feast in accordance with their religion.

There have already been published hundreds of hymns from Babylonia, and hundreds of ritual texts. The mass of this kind of literature is ten times greater than that found in the Old Testament. We have also a large body of laws from the early and late periods. In these, as well as in the mass of other texts, besides what is referred to above, there is not a semblance of an idea corresponding to the Hebrew Sabbath, nor any reference to the word (i. e., shabbat, not shapattu or shabattu).

Whether in view of the fact that the "new moon" and the Sabbath in the Old Testament, stand in juxtaposition in so many passages the Sabbath was originally the day of the "full moon," i. e., the fifteenth day of the month, need not concern us here." Suffice it to say that besides the requirements for the king, specified in the calendar for the periods of seven days, including the 19th of the intercalary Second Elul, which are simply designated as "evil days," there are no data to show that the general activities of life in Babylonia were interrupted on what corresponds to the Hebrew Sabbath, not even on the fifteenth day of the month, which was designated as shapattu; that there is no etymological evidence to show that the root shabat, corresponding to the Hebrew, was in use in Babylonia; and that besides the occurence of the word shapattu in lists, or dictionaries of rare words, it is not found in the literature of the Babylonians except in the Amorite Enuma elish

14 On this question see Jastrow, Amer. Jour. Sem. Lang. 30, 94 ff.

(V: 18). Moreover it is highly probable that shapattu is a reflection of the Hebrew shabbath.15

In view of all this, and also of the conclusion that the current of religious ideas flowed not in the direction of Syria and Palestine, as shown above in the second chapter, will scholars continue to promulgate the idea that the Hebrew Sabbath is of Babylonian origin? We have a right to expect more than this. Do not the scholars who have promulgated these ideas, if they have become convinced that their published views are wrong, have a responsibility to the Bible student in letting this fact become known?

This is the view also of Professor Torrey, who says that the Babylonian shabattu was borrowed from the West-Semitic shab'at meaning "seven" (AJSL 33, 53.)

VI

THE ANTEDILUVIAN PATRIARCHS

Many Assyriologists hold the view that the names of the antediluvian patriarchs of Genesis are translations of, or that they were otherwise made to be equivalents of, Babylonian names, in some instances of antediluvian kings, and in others, of kings from postdiluvian dynastic lists. It matters not whether those selected for the purpose belong to kings or sages. Some of the names used to show the origin of the early patriarchs are taken from Semitic, and others from Sumerian, lists, while several are deliberately changed to make them conform to those with which it is desired to identify them. The possibility that the ancestors of the Hebrews had their own traditional lists, is by them not even taken into consideration. It is in this way, we are informed, the Hebrew writers make up their fictitious lists of patriarchal ancestors.

A discussion of personal names is not ordinarily inviting to the average Bible student; nevertheless, I think even those not familiar with Semitic philology will not only be able to judge intelligently for themselves as to the merits of Babylonism, as it bears upon this subject, but will also find, I think, considerable interest in the display of effort made by scholars to prove the Babylonian origin of the Hebrew antediluvians, especially in studying the tabulated results on pages 125-7.

There are four sources of data used in trying to prove the Babylonian origin of these characters. The first of these is the Biblical. As is well known, there are two genealogical traditions or series of patriarchs in Genesis between the creation and the deluge, one having seven names, which is generally recognized as belonging to what is called the Jehovist version (J.), and the other having

ten, as belonging to what is called the Priestly version (P.). There are also divergences as to the order and the form in which some of the names appear (see below).

The second source of the material used in identifying the Biblical patriarchs with the Babylonian is the list of antediluvian Chaldean kings which has been handed down by Berossus, as preserved in the writings of Eusebius and Syncellus, who had obtained their data from writings of Apollodorus, Abydenus, and Polyhistor." As a result, the names said to have been copied by Berossus at Babylon, are handed down in variant forms (see below).

Professor Langdon of Oxford has recently published the third source, namely, a tablet of the Ashmolean Museum consisting of eighteen lines, some of which are unfortunately fragmentary.2 This also gives ten kings who ruled before the flood, ending with the hero; but instead of the name Atra-khasis (Xisuthros), it gives the Sumerian form of the title he received after the deluge, namely Zi-û-sud-du (= Ûm-napishtim-rûqu) (see Chapter VII). Unfortunately only three of the names or titles are complete, and the reading of one of these is yet to be explained.

The fourth source of material used to show the origin of the Hebrew patriarchs is in the early dynastic list of kings who ruled in Babylonia subsequent to the deluge. These have furnished additional material for certain scholars in their efforts to prove the Biblical patriarchs to be of Babylonian origin.

1 See Cory, Ancient Fragments, from which the variants given below are taken. Jour. Royal Asiatic Society, Apr. 1923, 251.

• See Poebel, Historical Texts 73 ff., or Clay, Jour. Am. Or. Soc. 41, 241 ff.

The first column gives the age at the birth of the son whose name follows, and

the second column, all his years.