THE DELUGE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 828, 28 May 1910, Page 14

THE DELUGE.

NEW RECORD FOUND.

An editor of the story of the deluge which was published in the far off days of Abraham himself iias been discovered by Professor Hilprecht, director of an expedition organised by the University of Pennsylvania. It consists (says a writer in the "Christian World") of a worn morsel of unbaked clay, about two and a half inches square, within the compass of which there have been deciphered upon one face the fragments of thirteen lines. The whole tablet may have bton ten inches by seven' in' its perfect form, with 130 lines in all. From this it will bo realised that there is still room tor hope, seeing that so tremendous an event in the epic-story of the race is likely, to havo been preserved in" many copies. Tho indentations made by the writing tool were choked with tiny crystals, the saline incrustation of 4000 years, and they were patiently Temoved by the discoverer, who spent an hour or two each day for three long weeks in picking thorn out one by one. ■

In a forthcoming work Dr. Hilprecht presents a translation of tho text, which ho pieces out with some material derived from tho Nineveh versions with which we arc already familiar. These interpolations aro bracketed, and for the sake, of convenience tho discoverer's collation with the relevant verses of tho sixth chapter of Genesis is prefixed to each line: Gen.vi. 7, 11 (the confines of heaven and earth) 1 will loosen, 6, 11 (a delugo I. will .make, and) it shall sweep away all men together;.. 18 (but seek thou li) fe before tho , deluge cometh forth; 17 (for over all living beings,) as many as there are, I will bring overthrow, destruction, annihilation.

14 a great boat build thou, and, 15 . . total height let its structure be. 16 let it be a houseboat carrying what has been saved of life. . . throw over (it) a strong deck. 19 (the ship) which thou shalt make . . . (into it brin)g the beast of the field, the bird of heaven, ' 20 (and the creeping'' tilings, two of everything) instead of a number. 18 . . and tho family se(nd). The surpassing interest of this new version lies in the fact that it represents tho form of the story with which Abraham must have ' been familiar from his Chaldean days. There is continued evidence that we arc here in tho presonce of a version which, rather than the Nineveh tablet hitherto known, served as a basis for some of the incidents related in Genesis.