. Babel and Bible;. ng 2000 years before Christ. The sea plays the prin-cipal part in this flood, and therefore the ark of the Baby-lonian Noah, Xisuthros, is cast back upon a spur of theArmenio-Medean mountains; but in other respects it isthe same old story of the Flood, so familiar to us all. Xisuthros receives from the god of the watery deepthe command to build a ship of certain dimensions, tocoat it thoroughly with pitch,.and to put on board of ithis entire family together with the seeds of all livingthings. The ship is entered, its doors are closed, it iscast adrift upon the devastating w
. Babel and Bible;. ng 2000 years before Christ. The sea plays the prin-cipal part in this flood, and therefore the ark of the Baby-lonian Noah, Xisuthros, is cast back upon a spur of theArmenio-Medean mountains; but in other respects it isthe same old story of the Flood, so familiar to us all. Xisuthros receives from the god of the watery deepthe command to build a ship of certain dimensions, tocoat it thoroughly with pitch,.and to put on board of ithis entire family together with the seeds of all livingthings. The ship is entered, its doors are closed, it iscast adrift upon the devastating waves, and is finally 40 BABEL AND BIBLE. stranded upon a mountain bearing the name of follows the famous passage: On the seventh dayI took forth a dove and released it; the dove flew hitherand thither, but finding no resting-place returned. Wethen read that a swallow was sent forth; it also found noresting-place and returned. Finally a raven was sentforth, which, noticing that the waters had subsided, did. Fig. 42. Tablet Containing Babylonian Story of the Flood. not return. Xisuthros then abandons his ship and offerssacrifices on the summit of the mountain. The sweetodor was scented by the gods, etc., etc. This entire story, precisely as it is here written,afterwards travelled to Canaan, but owing to the totallydifferent conformation of the land in this latter country,it was forgotten that the sea had played the principal role, BABEL AND BIBLE. 41 and we accordingly find in the Bible two distinct versionsof the Flood, which are not only absolutely impossiblefrom the point of view of natural science, but are also atdiametrical variance with each other, the one giving asthe duration of the Flood a period of 365 days and theother a period of 40 + (3 X 7), or 61 days. We owe thediscovery that two fundamentally different versions of thestory of the Flood were welded together into one in theBible, to the orthodox Catholic body surgeon of LouisXV., Jean Astruc, who, in the
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