Lehre und Wehre St. Louis, Missouri — Juni 1898, Seite 168

German transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

Cited in Eckhardt's Reallexikon (1907) under: Wiſſenſchaft

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168 Wissenschaften und Glaubensartikel.

element is the distinctive feature of the Chaldean record, and that
the originals of the tablets of Niniveh may have been very ancient,
but that they are so mixed up with the history of the Chaldean
hero, named Izdubar, as to suggest that there may have existed
before it still older ereation legends.“

Dieselben Inschriften geben uns auch eine Bestätigung der Sünd⸗
fluth. Ich lasse auch hier wieder Gladstone reden (a. a. O., S. 276 ff.):
Like the Creation Story of Genesis, that of the Flood derives cor-
roboration from the Babylonian record, inasmuch as it is thus
carried back by an independent testimony to àa very great an⸗-
tiquity. That reécord, composed, as Mr. Smith thinks, not long
after the time of IzZdubar or Nimrod, gives us the tradition of a flood
wbich was a divine punishment for the wickedness of the world,
and of a holy man, who built an ark, and escaped the general
destruction. The particulars are set out in Mr. Smith's volume
(Assyrian Discoveries, 1872). They difter, in many respects,
krom those of Genesis, but the essential features are in the highest
degree marked, and, together with certain of the details, are sin-
gularly accordant..

The hero of the deluge is Hasisadra, a name which has been
Hellenized into Nisuthrus; who, on the eleventh tablet, relates to
Izdubar (the supposed Nimrod) the story of the deluge. I shall
only attempt an outline presenting the main points.

In the ancient city of Surippah, where Anu and other great
gods were worshiped, Hasisadra was divinely warned by Hea, the
great water-god, to construct a ship, of which the size is named,
and commit to it the seed of life, all of it, as the sinner and life
were about to be destroyed by a flood. Food, furniture, wealth,
servants, and animals, were all to be embarked. The building and
loading of the ship are then described, and the part taken by the
several gods in bringing about the catastrophe. But the gods'
themselves feared the tempest, and 'ascended to the heaven of
Anu.“ This deluge lasted for six days; on the seventh all was
quiet. There is sight of land from within the vessel. It is arrested
by the mountain of Nizir. A dove is sent forth, and returns.
A swallow is sent, and does the like. A raven goes, feeds on the
corpses that are afloat, and returns not. Then comes landing,
sacrifice, the sending forth of animals. Ninip and Hea then re-
monstrate with Bel, and suggest other more usual means of chas-
tizing men in which there seems to be some affinity to the promise
of Genesis 8, 21. 22 and 9, 11—17, that there should never again

be aà flood upon the earth. And then dwelt Hasisadra in a remote
place at the mouth of the rivers.““

English translation

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