is so characteristic a feature of the
Semitic-Babylonian system, though absent from the earliest Sumerian
ideas of Creation, was inherent in the nature of the local rivers, whose
varied aspects gave rise to or coloured separate myths. Its presence
in the later mythology may be traced as a reflection of political
development, at first probably among the warring cities of Sumer, but
certainly later in the Semitic triumph at Babylon. It was but to
be expected that the conqueror, whether Sumerian or Semite, should
represent his own god's victory as the establishment of order out of
chaos. But this would be particularly in harmony with the character of
the Semitic Babylonians of the First Dynasty, whose genius for method
and organization produced alike Hammurabi's Code of Laws and the
straight streets of the capital.

We have thus been able to trace the various strands of the
Semitic-Babylonian poem of Creation to Sumerian origins; and in the
second lecture we arrived at a very similar conclusion with regard to
the Semitic-Babylonian Version of the Deluge preserved in the Epic of
Gilgamesh. We there saw that the literary structure of the Sumerian
Version, in which Creation and Deluge are combined, must have survived
under some form into the Neo-Babylonian period, since it was reproduced
by Berossus. And we noted the fact that the same arrangement in Genesis
did not therefore prove that the Hebrew accounts go back directly to
early Sumerian originals. In fact, the structural resemblance presented
by Genesis can only be regarded as an additional proof that the
Sumerian originals continued to be studied and translated by the Semitic
priesthood, although they had long been superseded officially by their
later descendants, the Semitic epics. A detailed comparison of the
Creation and Deluge narratives in the various versions at once discloses
the fact that the connexion between those of the Semitic Babylonians
and the Hebrews is far closer and more striking than that which can be
traced when the latter are placed beside the Sumerian originals. We may
therefore regard it as certain that the Hebrews derived their knowledge
of Sumerian tradition, not directly from the Sumerians themselves, but
through Semitic channels from Babylon.

It will be unnecessary here to go in detail through the points of
resemblance that are admitted to exist between the Hebrew account of
Creation in the first chapter of Genesis and that preserved in the