Project Gutenberg's Legends Of Babylon And Egypt, by Leonard W. King

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Legends Of Babylon And Egypt
In Relation To Hebrew Tradition

Author: Leonard W. King

Release Date: March 28, 2006 [EBook #2030]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF BABYLON AND EGYPT ***

Produced by John Bickers; Dagny

LEGENDS OF BABYLON AND EGYPT IN RELATION TO HEBREW TRADITION

By Leonard W. King, M.A., Litt.D., F.S.A.

Assistant Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British
Museum

Professor in the University of London King's College

First Published 1918 by Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press.

THE BRITISH ACADEMY

THE SCHWEICH LECTURES 1916

PREPARER'S NOTE

This text was prepared from a 1920 edition of the book,
hence the references to dates after 1916 in some places.

Greek text has been transliterated within brackets "{}"
using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table.
Diacritical marks have been lost.

PREFACE

In these lectures an attempt is made, not so much to restate familiar
facts, as to accommodate them to new and supplementary evidence which
has been published in America since the outbreak of the war. But even
without the excuse of recent discovery, no apology would be needed for
any comparison or contrast of Hebrew tradition with the mythological
and legendary beliefs of Babylon and Egypt. Hebrew achievements in the
sphere of religion and ethics are only thrown into stronger relief when
studied against their contemporary background.

The bulk of our new material is furnished by some early texts, written
towards the close of the third millennium B.C. They incorporate
traditions which extend in unbroken outline from their own period into
the remote ages of the past, and claim to trace the history of man back
to his creation. They represent the early national traditions of
the Sumerian people, who preceded the Semites as the ruling race in
Babylonia; and incidentally they necessitate a revision of current
views with regard to the cradle of Babylonian civilization. The most
remarkable of the new docume