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Chapter 7 - The Testimony of Archaeology
This does not necessarily mean that no gleam of light or
truth remained in these accounts as transmitted by the Babylonians, because
some of them seem to give indications of a widespread knowledge of an
ancient revelation on this subject of creation. The Babylonians asserted
that original knowledge had been received from 'on high', but such similarities
as exist are so overlaid with crude polytheistic ideas that it is difficult
to discover any reasonable references to creation on their tablets. Besides
the Babylonian accounts already referred to, other fragments have been
preserved which tell us of the ancient beliefs of the Sumerians and Babylonians
regarding the creation of the world and man. Berossus, a priest of Bel at Babylon, who lived at the time
of Alexander the Great, translated into Greek some of the ancient history
of the Babylonians, including the story of creation. Only fragments of
this history remain, and what has survived is known to us only through
second-hand sources; it is from the works of Eusebius and Josephus that
we learn what he wrote. Since excavation has made us familiar with the
story of Babylonia, we know-what was previously doubted -that he accurately
reproduced the ancient Babylonian stories current in his day. The account
of the primitive revelation which he copied from some ancient source reads
in the version which has come down to us as follows: "In the first
year (after creation) there appeared from the Erythrean sea which borders
on Babylonia, a Being gifted with reason whose name was Oannes . . . his
voice and language were human and his picture is still preserved. This
Being, they say, abode during the day with mankind, eating nothing, he
taught them the knowledge of writing and numbers and arts of every kind.
He taught them to construct houses, to found temples, how laws should
be made and the land cultivated. He explained seeds and harvesting of
crops, things necessary to civilised life he taught men. Since that time
nothing has surpassed this instruction. At sunset this being Cannes, went
again into the sea. Oannes wrote a book (logos) concerning creation and
citizenship" (see Cory, A; Ancient Fragments, and Rogers, Cuneiform
Parallels to the Old Testament). How much of this reflects the original story and how much
later legend? Oannes is stated to have been the original instructor of
mankind; an old Babylonian account said that "for six days he instructed
Alorus (according to the story, Alorus was the first man who reigned)
and when the sun went down he withdrew till next morning ". The Babylonians
knew nothing whatever of a creation in six days; the reference is quite
clearly to an occasion when six days' instruction was given and according
to Berossus this instruction represents the original book of revelation. That the Babylonians regarded these tablets of destiny as
a revelation there can be little question, for we are told that "Enmeduranki,
one of the seven primeval kings, received the secrets of Anu (Ea), the
tablet of the gods, the tablet of . . . the mystery of the heaven, and
taught them to his son " (Vol. I, p. 83). The title given on the
colophon of this Babylonian tablet is "tablet of the secrets of the
heaven and earth"; according to Berossus it is the celestial book
of revelation. The similarity of this title and that in the Genesis colophon
will be noted. The place occupied by Cannes and Ea in Babylonian stories
is, in Egyptian traditions, taken by Thoth. This god, whom the Egyptians
represent as having a human body with the head of an Ibis, was regarded
as the source of all wisdom. Sir E. A. Wallis Budge says that Thoth "was
thought to be a form of the mind and intellect and wisdom of God who created
the heavens and the earth, the picture characters, or hieroglyphs as they
are called, were held to be holy, or divine, or sacred"; "He
was lord of wisdom and possessor of all knowledge, both heavenly and earthly,
divine and human" (The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians, p. i).
To him is ascribed the origination of speech, writing and civilisation.
In the early days the Egyptians invented gods by the hundred, yet, amongst
the most ancient of these, Thoth is represented as holding a writing pallette
and a reed pen. As far back as it is possible to go in Egyptian history,
to the First Dynasty, they bad a perfected system of writing. At first
this picture writing was probably not difficult to understand, but when
it became semi-alphabetic, the signs lost much if not all their meaning
and became far from easy to decipher. It was called picture writing because
every sign is a picture of some creature or thing. It must be understood
however that the Egyptians did not express their ideas merely by drawings
or pictures, they wrote down words even in the earliest times, words which
can be spelt and grammar which can be studied, just as one can Greek or
Latin. The Egyptians maintained that it was Thoth who taught mankind to
write, that he was also 'lord of the voice', master of speech. In Genesis
i. 14 we read, "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament
of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs."
The word used for 'signs' is 'thot' and means 'to mark', or 'describe
with a mark'. Eusebius in his Praebaratio Evangelica says in regard to
the ancient Phoenician ideas of the origin of the world that 'Tauthe'
(the Thoth of the Egyptians) "invented writing and recorded the history
of the first cause ". Another ancient document is "The Asatir ", the
Samaritan Book of the Secrets of Moses. It was first translated from the
Samaritan script and became known by Dr. Gaster's publication of it in
1927. He says, "I claim for the Secrets of Moses that it is the oldest
book in existence of this kind of literature. " It was compiled,
he says, " about the middle or end of the third century B.C.".
The Samaritans hold the book in high esteem and ascribe it to Moses, and
say that the old tradition "has been preserved unaltered down to
our very days". In chapter iii. 9 of this book it states that Adam
possessed three books and that " In seven years he (Noah) learned
the three books of creation: the Book of Signs, the Book of Astronomy
and the Book of the wars which is the Book of the generations of Adam".
Dr. Gaster says (P. 36) that the Samaritans "declared the calculation
of the Calendar to be a Divine revelation made to Adam, Genesis i. 14,
where the luminaries are set into the heavens to be for 'signs, and for
seasons, and for days, and for years', has been taken by the Samaritans
to prove that from the very beginning . . . this knowledge had been imparted
to Adam ". Much is written about the Book of Signs which was given
to Adam (ii. 7), and Enoch is said to have " learned from the Book
of Signs" which was given to Adam. In ii. 12 it is said that "Adam
started reading the Book of Signs before his sons". Noah obtained
possession of it (iii. 9) and in iv. 15 it is said that Noah gave it to
Arpachshad, from Arpachshad the knowledge was handed down to Abraham,
to Joseph, to Moses (p. 36). This Book of Asatir shows that there were
glimmerings of truth which had become overlaid by tradition. It contains
absurd corruptions and in this respect is a manifest contrast to the first
page of the Bible. If the Book of Signs was, as the Samaritans teach,
that referred to in Genesis i. 14 then it is possible that "the Book
of the Wars which is the Book of the generations of Adam" is our
Genesis ii. 5 to v. i, which in our English translation is called 'the
book of the generations of Adam'. It is significant that not a little
of this section has to do with warfare, first against the tempter in Eden,
next with the expulsion from Paradise, then the murder of Abet by Cain,
resulting in the sentence against Cain a " fugitive and vagabond
shalt thou be in the earth" (iv. 12) and Cain's, lament that "it
shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me".
It is clear that as early as the third century B.C. the Samaritans held
that the contents of the first chapter of Genesis had been communicated
to Adam. With the common Hebrew and Samaritan tradition about these
ancient records as having been handed down to Noah, the oldest Babylonian
accounts generally agree. Berossus writing also in the third century B.C.
gives the Babylonian account of the ten rulers who lived 'before the Flood'
and relates that the seventh (comparable with Enoch) was named Edoranchus,
the equivalent of Enmeduranki. A fragmentary text which was found has
been published by Zimmern (Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Bab: Religion) it
describes how this person was given the secret of the gods Anu, Bel and
Ea, the written tablets of the gods, "the mystery of the heaven and
earth". The question will be asked to whom was this creation narrative
revealed in the six days? The Babylonians said it was to first man and
this was known to the Egyptians. More than two thousand years ago the
Jews had their own beliefs about it, and in more recent years some additional
ancient books containing these beliefs have been discovered. One of these
books has been lost to scholars for over one thousand two hundred years,
it is known as The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, or as the title of one
version renders it, "These are the secret books of God which were
shown unto Enoch". It is known as the 'Slavonic' Enoch, and was discovered
in 1892: parts of it were originally written in Hebrew and Greek. It is
old enough to be quoted in the first century for it was written before
the Christian era. Its chief interest to us is the information it gives
of the beliefs about the revelation of the account of creation current
in the days of our Lord. Amongst much irrational extravagance and senseless
fantasy it purports to be a description of Enoch's translation to the
seventh heaven and says, "And the Lord spake to me Enoch . . . I
will tell thee now, even from the first, what things I created . . . not
even to the angels have I told my secrets, nor have I informed them of
their origin, nor have they understood my creation which I tell thee of
to-day. . . . And I separated between the light and the darkness . . .
and it was so and I said to the light 'let it be day' and to the darkness
'let it be night'. And the evening and the morning were the first day'
. . . and thus I caused the waters below which It are under the heaven
to be gathered in one place and the waves should be dried up and it was
so. Then it was evening and again morning the second day." One version
states, "On it God showed to Enoch all His wisdom and power: during
all I the seven days how He created the powers of the heaven and earth
and all moving things and at last man." Again chapter xxxiii, "And
now Enoch what things I have told thee and what thou hast understood and
what heavenly things thou hast seen upon the earth and what thou hast
(one version has 'I have') written in the books by My wisdom all these
things I devised so as to create them . . . do thou take the books which
thou thyself hath written .- . . and go with them upon the earth and tell
thy sons what things I have said to thee. . . . Give them the works written
out by thee and they shall read them and know Ale to be the Creator of
all and shall understand that there is no other God beside Me." On
this Dr. Charles com ments, "This was the ancient belief of the Jews,
from being, the scribe of God's works as he is universally in the Ethiopic
and Slavonic Enoch." It was the popular belief that Enoch who prophesied
of a second coming referred the first coming to the time when God came
to Adam. It is stated thus, "Listen, my sons, In those days when
the Lord came upon the earth for the sake of Adam and visited all his
creation which He Himself had made, the Lord called all the cattle . .
. " Again (chapter 1xiv), " For thou art before the face of
the Lord for ever, since God hath chosen thee above all men upon the earth,
and has appointed thee as the scribe of His creation of visible and invisible
things. " It is clear therefore that in Old Testament times the current
belief was of a revelation to First Man and to Enoch and of 'heavenly
tablets'. Constant reference is made to God' teaching man to write. This
is further illustrated in another book called I Enoch or the Ethiopic
Enoch which was written in the second century before Christ. It tells
of Enoch the Scribe and much about the 'heavenly tablets' which had been
written and passed down to succeeding generations by Enoch. It will be
seen that the testimony which archaeology has to give is of considerable
importance. Unexpectedly, our investigation has brought us back to a revelation in the earliest times of man. Both the Hebrew, the Samaritan, the Greek writings current in Palestine during the two centuries before Christ, and the old Babylonian traditions, assert a transmission of writings about creation down from the beginning of time to Enoch and Noah. |