Page:The Deluge in Other Literatures and History.djvu/6

 fact, "an actual and terrible event which made so powerful an impression upon the imaginations of the first parents of our species that their descendants could never forget it. This cataclysm took place near the primitive cradle of mankind and previous to the separation of the families from whom the principal races were to descend." Among three races it was primitive and these were the descendants of Ham, Shem and Japheth. Having now decided as to the character of the event which forms the subject of the stories, we may compare the stories themselves.

III. A Comparison of the Biblical with the Outside Material.

1. Similarities. — In all, or nearly all of the stories there will be found allusions to the following topics: Wickedness, the announcement, the command to build, the contents of the ark, the entering into the ark, the coming of the waters, a certain duration, the appearance of land, birds, the altar and the sacrifice, the Divine repentance, the rainbow. Kalisch has thus summarized it: "Scarcely a single feature of the biblical account which is not discovered in one or several of the heathen traditions. Coincidences not limited to details; they extend to the whole outlines; it is almost everywhere the sin of man which renders the determination of an all just judge irrevocable; one pious man is saved with his family to form the nucleus of a new population; an ark is introduced; and pairs of the animal creation are collected; birds are sent out to ascertain the condition of the earth; an altar is built and sacrifices are offered. It is certain that none of these accounts are derived from the pages of the Bible. They are independent of each other. Their differences are as striking and characteristic as their analogies; they are echoes of a sound which had long vanished away."

2. Differences. — Under this head we may take as example the one outside story which is recognized as standing first in every particular — the Assyrian. If now we compare the biblical account with the Assyrian, we note dissimilarities in reference to form and contents; for example, a difference in respect to size and