Page:The Deluge in Other Literatures and History.djvu/3

 them in the small space at our disposal. The most important of all the stories, the Chaldean, will be found translated in full in the February number of the. The reader is referred also to this article. It is to be remembered that a copy of the Assyrian account, now in our possession, was made about 700 B.C. by order of Asur-bani-pal, from an old copy in the library of the city of Uruk. This older copy goes back to 1,800 or 2,000 years before Christ. The existence of the story was known before the discovery of the tablets by accounts handed down by Berosus, a Chaldean priest living in the time of Alexander the Great and his successors. Fragments of his work furnished some of the most important details of the story. The original itself, referred to above, was found by George Smith, in 1872, among certain brick tablets brought from Nineveh. It was given to the world for the first time in the London Daily News, December 5, 1872. Besides the Assyrian story the student will read and examine also (1) the Aramæan, (2) the Sanskrit, (3) the Persian, (4) the various Greek stories, (5) the Phrygian, (6) the Scandinavian, (7) the Lithuanian, (8) the Celtic, (9) the Egyptian, (10) the American, (11) the Polynesian. A few remarks may be made upon the supposition that the details of the various stories referred to above are familiar to the reader. 1) There is, of course, great divergence of matter, each story exhibiting a coloring which is characteristic of the country in which it has its origin. The maritime nations present it in certain forms; inland nations in still other forms. 2) Notwithstanding the very great divergence, the essential facts are found to be the same. Wickedness, punishment for wickedness, a great storm or deluge, the destruction of humanity, the deliverance of a few, the adoption of these few as special favorites of the God or gods, — these general ideas are found everywhere. 3) It is at once apparent to any one who has examined the material, that while some of it may be regarded as late and consequently based upon the biblical narrative, much of it is as old as the biblical narrative or even older.

The main problems which present themselves for solution are two, namely, the historical and the literary; the first dealing