Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/110

 are called Admi or Adami, which is exactly the name given to the first man in Genesis.

The word Adam used in these legends for the first human being is evidently not a proper name, but is only used as a term for mankind. Adam appears as a proper name in Genesis, but certainly in some passages is only used in the same sense as the Assyrian word, and we are told on the creation of human beings (Genesis, v. 1): "In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created."

It has already been pointed out by Sir Henry Rawlinson that the Babylonians recognized two principal races: the Adamu, or dark race, and the Sarku, or light race, probably in the same manner that two races are mentioned in Genesis, the sons of Adam and the sons of God. It appears incidentally from the fragments of inscriptions that it was the race of Adam, or the dark race, which was believed to have fallen, but there is at present no clue to the position of the other race in their system. We are informed in Genesis that when the world became corrupt the sons of God intermarried with the race of Adam, and thus spread the evils which had commenced with the Adamites (see Genesis, ch. vi.).

The obverse of the tablet giving the creation of man, where it breaks off leaves him in a state of purity, and where the narrative recommences on the reverse man has already fallen.