Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/101

 11. flesh beautiful?

12. pure presence

13. pure presence

14. pure presence in the assembly

15.

This tablet corresponds to the sixth day of Creation (Genesis, i. 24-25): "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

"And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good."

The Assyrian tablet commences with a statement of the satisfaction a former creation, apparently that of the monsters or whales, had given; here referring to Genesis i. 23. It then goes on to relate the creating of living animals on land, three kinds being distinguished, exactly agreeing with the Genesis account, and then we have in the ninth line a curious but broken account of Nin-si-ku (one of the names of Hea), creating two beings to be with the animals, the wording of the next fragmentary lines leading to the suspicion that this was the opening of the account of the creation of man. This, however, is only a suspicion, for the lines are so mutilated and obscure that nothing can be fairly proved from them. It is curious here, however, to notice a tablet which refers