and that the nomenclature of the era is full of Amorite personal names, it certainly does not require a stretch of the imagination to appreciate that this is the origin of the legend. Five centuries later, when the Cassites ruled the land, these Amorite names had generally disappeared; and there is little evidence of the Amorite words that had been introduced in the previous era. It is not difficult to understand, therefore, how, in the dozen centuries which followed the age of Hammurabi, when there is no evidence that Amorite migrations took place, these legends suffered many changes at the hands of redactors, when foreign elements that had been previously retained, were eliminated; or by a slight change, the Amorite word was transformed into a good Babylonian word. It must be conceded as remarkable, therefore, that in spite of the fact, as we have seen above, that scribes replaced Amorite words with Babylonian, there are traces of not a few Amorite words to be found in the redaction written thirteen hundred years later. We also find that a number of the foreign words which have been retained are glossed. In addition to khubur, already noted, which is glossed by pukhru in the late version, and also the word shu, let it suffice to call attention here to the following from the translation published in A Hebrew Deluge Story. In the late redaction these two lines occur (1:36 and 37): When the sixth year arrives, they prepare the daughter for a meal; The words ana patte have been translated "aussitôt," "für Zehrung(?)," and "for food (?)." But these are only guesses, for there is no Babylonian word having such meanings. By considering it to be the Hebrew word pat, "morsel," and translating the passage as above, we have perfect sense. Moreover, since the text is not written in parallelismus membrorum, we can only conclude that the first line is a gloss to explain the second, containing the foreign word. In line II:55, 56, we have the passage which has been usually translated: [He speaks] with his god, Ea, his lord, speaks not(la-shu) with him(itti-shu) The parallel passage (III:19, 20) reads: He speaks with his god, Fa, his lord, speaks with him. All scholars have read la-shu in the former passage as a negative particle, although such a particle is unknown. One scholar changed the text and made it read la-a "not." Two of the translators, appreciating the difficulty of such a translation, for the context does not require the negative, added a question mark. There can be little question but that itti-shu "with him" in the former passage, is a gloss explaining the meaning of la-shu, which is the Amorite inseparable preposition with the pronominal suffix, meaning "to him." In the parallel passage, la-shu is omitted. This is the third gloss referred to in the late redaction. In I:43, ma, at the beginning of the line, is left by all translators wholly unaccounted for. Since the Babylonian m reproduced the Hebrew w, the explanation must be that ma is here the Hebrew waw conjunctive, meaning "and." The words shu-u ia i-'-ru (III:49), have been translated "Korn nicht...ess!", "qu'elle ne germe pas!", "Getreide nicht kommen (?)!", and "lambs shall not fatten." There can be no question but that the words mean: "that sheep become not pregnant." The word shu, which we have discussed above, is the Hebrew seh, here used as in the Old Testament. I have elsewhere called attention to a few other examples of words found in this text, which I hold are Amorite in spite of the fact that they occur once or twice in the cuneiform literature besides these legends. 52 I shall omit them here, since Babylonists, whose viewpoint is totally different from mine, can point to these and refuse to acknowledge that they are foreign. Let us now inquire whether any traces of the original Amorite version can be found in the Gilgamesh story of the deluge. We have already called attention to such forms as lisakhkhir (188, etc.) instead of luşakhkhir, containing the Aramaic precative. Qiru (66) has been translated "Innerraum," "l'intérieur," "Schmelzofen (?)" and "outside (?)." There is no Babylonian word known to justify these guesses; but in Hebrew we have qîr "wall," which makes excellent sense for the passage. In line 133, one text reads: ta-ma-ta "sea," but the variant text reads û-mu, which has been translated as usual, "day." The passage would then read: "I looked out upon the sea (variant "day"); the voice was silent." The contexts would seem to show that the meaning "sea" is preferable to "day." The common Babylonian word ûmu "day" represents the Hebrew yôm "day," but it here unquestionably represents the Hebrew yām "sea." This obviously is the correct meaning of the word; and it is Amorite, for yām "sea" is unknown in Babylonian. In other words both tâmata and ûmu mean "sea." The word pikhú "governor" is another Amorite word. It is commonly used in the Old Testament, and in Biblical and old Aramaic. It is not found in current use in Babylonia. The Babylonian words for "governor" are pakhâti and bêl pakhâti. Besides our passage in the deluge story with pikhû, there is one occurrence known to the writer of this word in cuneiform; it is in a contract tablet.53 Now because in the five thousand, more or less, contract tablets which are now known, many of which refer to boats, there 52 See A Hebrew Deluge Story in Cuneiform. 53 Strassmaier, Inschriften von Nabonidus 180:1. occurs in the record of a payment dated in the reign of Nabonidus, the passage: "one-half shekel of silver for the governor of the ship" (bi-khi-e sha elippi), and knowing that ships as now sometimes sailed from one land to another, and also that Nebuchadnezzar had previously filled the land with thousands of Jewish captives, shall we regard this bikhû or pikhû as a Babylonian, or as an Amorite word? 54 The word kha-aja-al-ti (131), which is not Babylonian, has in previous years been compared with the Hebrew. The words la-an (60), su-us-su-ul-lu (68), u-pa-az-zi-ru (70), na-a-shi (142), I maintain are also Amorite, see A Hebrew Deluge Story. There are other Amorite words in this text; but these suffice to show that in this legend from the West, even as late as the Assyrian period, linguistic evidence is still to be found to prove its origin. In summarizing the results of our study of the versions of the deluge story, as handed down by the Babylonians, we find that the famine story is not Babylonian, but that it could have had its origin in Amurru; that the force in nature responsible for the deluge is not Babylonian, but it is true to Amorite coloring; that the reference to mountains and other literary details, as the fig tree, are not Babylonian, but are true to Amorite scenery; that the gods which brought on the deluge are not Babylonian, but are Amorite; that the names of the hero, and his pilot, are not Babylonian, but are Amorite; and that there is much Amorite linguistic evidence found in the different versions. And having shown the overwhelming influence of Amurru, leaving out of consideration the Sumerian names of deities, as we do that of Yahweh in the Hebrew tradition, let us ask what are the dis 54 In view of these facts it appears somewhat surprising that scholars should have regarded the Hebrew pekhah as a loan word from Babylonia. See Brown, Hebrew Lexicon p. 808; Zimmern, Akkadische Fremdwörter p. 6, etc. tinctive Babylonian features in the Babylonian versions? I know of nothing that is distinctively Babylonian-nothing. Now let us make a similar inquiry with reference to the versions handed down by those living in Amurru, the Hebrews and the Greeks. The famine story, the force in nature which caused the deluge, the name of the hero, Noah, the mountains, the olive branch-these are not Babylonian, but can be Amorite. The words mabbul "flood," and tebah "ark" are not Babylonian. There is also nothing in the Greek version that is Babylonian. How are the Babylonists and the Sumerists going to explain these facts? And let me finally ask, will they continue to publish the baseless theory of the Babylonian origin of these versions for consumption by the Biblical student and the student of general history? |