Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/319

 a Syrian chief in the ninth century, and the devices upon it, the sacred tree, and composite beings, show similar stories and ideas to have prevailed there to those in Babylonia.

One question which will be asked, and asked in vain is: "Did either of the two races, Jews or Babylonians, borrow from the other the traditions of these early times, and if so, when?"

There is one point in connection with this question worth noticing: these traditions are not fixed to any localities near Palestine, but are, even on the showing of the Jews themselves, fixed to the neighbourhood of the Euphrates valley, and Babylonia in particular; this of course is clearly stated in the Babylonian inscriptions and traditions.

Eden, according even to the Jews, was by the Euphrates and Tigris; the cities of Babylon, Larancha, and Sippara were supposed to have been founded before the Flood. Surippak was the city of the ark, the mountains east of the Tigris were the resting-place of the ark, Babylon was the site of the tower, and Ur of the Chaldees the birthplace of Abraham. These facts and the further statement that Abraham, the father and first leader of the Hebrew race, migrated from Ur to Harran in Syria, and from there to Palestine, are all so much evidence in favour of the hypothesis that Chaldea was the original home of these stories, and that the Jews received them originally from the Babylonians; but on the other hand there are such striking differences