ever, like the
latter part of the first tablet, is destroyed, and of the next tablet--that
which described the creation of animals--only the first few lines remain.
"At that time," it begins, "the gods in their assembly created (the living
creatures). They made beautiful the mighty (animals). They made the living
beings come forth, the cattle of the field, the beast of the field, and
the creeping thing." What follows is too mutilated to yield a connected
sense.

There is no need of pointing out how closely this Assyrian account of the
Creation resembles that of Genesis. Even the very wording and phrases of
Genesis occur in it, and though no fragment is preserved which expressly
tells us that the work of the Creation was accomplished in seven days, we
may infer that such was the case, from the order of events as recorded on
the tablets. But, with all this similarity, there is even greater
dissimilarity. The philosophical conceptions with which the Assyrian
account opens, the polytheistic colouring which we find in it further on,
have no parallel in the Book of Genesis. The spirit of the two narratives
is essentially different.

The last tablet probably contained an account of the institution of the
Sabbath. At all events, we learn that the seventh day was observed as a
day of rest among the Babylonians, as it was among the Jews. It was even
called by the same name of Sabbath, a word which is defined in an Assyrian
text as "a day of rest for the heart," while the Accadian equivalent is
explained to mean "a day of completion of labour." A calendar of saints'
days for the month of the intercalary Elul makes the seventh, fourteenth,
twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of the lunar month Sabbaths, on which
certain works were forbidden to be done. On those days, it is stated,
"flesh cooked on the fire may not be eaten, the clothing of the body may
not be changed, white garments may not be put on, a sacrifice may not be
offered, the king may not ride in his chariot, nor speak in public, the
augur may not mutter in a secret place, medicine of the body may not be
applied, nor may any curse be uttered." Nothing, in fact, that implied
work was allowed to be done. Where the Babylonian Sabbath differed from
the Jewish one was in its essentially lunar character. The first Sabbath
was the first day of a month, whatever might be the length of the month
that preceded it. While Sabbaths and new moons are distinguished from one
another i