The Assyrian documents are copies of
Babylonian originals, but the Babylonian kingdom itself was a Semitic
one founded on the ruins of an earlier population, the inhabitants of
the plain of Shinar and the mountains beyond. Some time between 3000 and
2000 B.C. the Semitic conquerors of Babylonia took possession of the
plains, and some time later conquered also the Accadian mountaineers.
The Babylonians possessed and translated the old Accadian records: the
Assyrian tablets are mostly, but not all, copies, again, of the
Babylonian transcripts. The celebrated "Creation tablets," which contain
an account closely corresponding to Genesis, are among those which were
not copied from Accadian originals; and they do not date further back
than the reign of Assur-bani-pal, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks; who
reigned in the seventh century B.C. They may therefore be derived from
the Bible, not the Bible from them. It would seem from some earlier
(Accadian) tablets, that a different account of the Creation existed
among them. But though it is doubtful how far the Accadians had
preserved this account, or at least had others along with it, _they had
a seven days week_ and _a Sabbath_. All this points to _one_ original
tradition, which specified days of creation and a Sabbath, though it got
altered and distorted, so that the true account was preserved as one
among many local variations.
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