dam, and the thread of narrative connecting the creation
of the world with its partial destruction by the Deluge, already appear
in Sumerian form at a time when the city of Babylon itself had
not secured its later power. How then are we to account for this
correspondence of Sumerian and Hebrew traditions, on points completely
wanting in our intermediate authorities, from which, however, other
evidence suggests that the Hebrew narratives were derived?

At the risk of anticipating some of the conclusions to be drawn in the
next lecture, it may be well to define an answer now. It is possible
that those who still accept the traditional authorship of the Pentateuch
may be inclined to see in this correspondence of Hebrew and Sumerian
ideas a confirmation of their own hypothesis. But it should be pointed
out at once that this is not an inevitable deduction from the evidence.
Indeed, it is directly contradicted by the rest of the evidence we have
summarized, while it would leave completely unexplained some significant
features of the problem. It is true that certain important details of
the Sumerian tradition, while not affecting Babylon and Assyria,
have left their stamp upon the Hebrew narratives; but that is not an
exhaustive statement of the case. For we have also seen that a more
complete survival of Sumerian tradition has taken place in the
history of Berossus. There we traced the same general framework of the
narratives, with a far closer correspondence in detail. The kingly rank
of Ziusudu is in complete harmony with the Berossian conception of
a series of supreme Antediluvian rulers, and the names of two of the
Antediluvian cites are among those of their newly recovered Sumerian
prototypes. There can thus be no suggestion that the Greek reproductions
of the Sumerian tradition were in their turn due to Hebrew influence. On
the contrary we have in them a parallel case of survival in a far more
complete form.

The inference we may obviously draw is that the Sumerian narrative
continued in existence, in a literary form that closely resembled the
original version, into the later historical periods. In this there would
be nothing to surprise us, when we recall the careful preservation
and study of ancient Sumerian religious texts by the later Semitic
priesthood of the country. Each ancient cult-centre in Babylonia
continued to cling to its own local traditions, and the Sumerian desire
for their preservation, which was inher