sh legend. They chose out different incidents, one selecting what
the other rejected, and _vice versa_, so that their two accounts were
"mutually contradictory." They agreed, however, in cleansing it from its
polytheistic setting, and giving it a strictly monotheistic tone. Later,
an "editor" put the two narratives together, with all their
inconsistencies and contradictions, and interlocked them into one, which
presents all the main features of the original Gilgamesh story except
its polytheism. In other words, two Hebrew scribes each told in his own
way a part of the account of the Deluge which he had derived from
Babylon, and a third unwittingly so recombined them as to make them
represent the Babylonian original!

The two accounts of the Deluge, supposed to be present in Genesis,
therefore cannot be derived from the Gilgamesh epic, nor be later than
it, seeing that what is still plainly separable in Genesis is
inseparably fused in the epic.

On the other hand, can the Babylonian narrative be later than, and
derived from, the Genesis account? Since so many of the same
circumstances are represented in both, this is a more reasonable
proposition, if we assume that the Babylonian narrator had the Genesis
account as it now stands, and did not have to combine two separate
statements. For surely if he had the separate Priestly and Jehovistic
narratives we should now be able to decompose the Babylonian narrative
just as easily as we do the one in Genesis. The Babylonian adapter of
the Genesis story must have either been less astute than ourselves, and
did not perceive that he had really two distinct (and "contradictory")
narratives to deal with, or he did not consider this circumstance of the
slightest importance, and had no objection to merging them inextricably
into one continuous account.

It is therefore possible that the Babylonian account was derived from
that in Genesis; but it is not probable. The main circumstances are the
same in both, but the details, the presentment, the attitude of mind are
very different. We can better explain the agreement in the general
circumstances, and even in many of the details, by presuming that both
are accounts--genuine traditions--of the same actual occurrence. The
differences in detail, presentment, and attitude, are fully and
sufficiently explained by supposing that we have traditions from two, if
not three, witnesses of the event.

We have also the pictorial representation of