Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/51

Rh 3 & 4. In a collection of tablets discovered by Mr. Loftus at Senkereh, belonging, according to the kings mentioned in it, to about 1600, is part of an ancient Babylonian copy of this very text, the Babylonian copy being about one thousand years older than the Assyrian one.

It is, however, probable that most of the legends treated of in the present volume had existed as traditions in the country long before they were committed to writing, and some of these traditions, as embodied in the various works, exhibit great difference in details, showing that they had passed through many changes.

Taking the period of literary development in Babylonia as extending from 2000 to 1550, we may say, it roughly synchronizes with the period from Abraham to Moses, according to the ordinary chronology of our Bibles, and during this period it appears that traditions of the creation of the universe, and human history down to the time of Nimrod, existed parallel to, and in some points identical with, those given in the Book of Genesis.

Many of the documents embodying these traditions have been discovered in sadly mutilated condition, but there can be no doubt that future explorations will reveal more perfect copies, and numerous companion and explanatory texts, which will one day clear up the difficulties which now meet us at every step of their consideration.

So far as known contemporary inscriptions are