"Seven Tablets".(1) It will suffice to emphasize two of them, which gain
in significance through our newly acquired knowledge of early Sumerian
beliefs. It must be admitted that, on first reading the poem, one is
struck more by the differences than by the parallels; but that is due
to the polytheistic basis of the poem, which attracts attention when
compared with the severe and dignified monotheism of the Hebrew writer.
And if allowance be made for the change in theological standpoint, the
material points of resemblance are seen to be very marked. The outline
or general course of events is the same. In both we have an abyss of
waters at the beginning denoted by almost the same Semitic word, the
Hebrew _tehom_, translated "the deep" in Gen. i. 2, being the equivalent
of the Semitic-Babylonian _Tiamat_, the monster of storm and flood who
presents so striking a contrast to the Sumerian primaeval water.(2) The
second act of Creation in the Hebrew narrative is that of a "firmament",
which divided the waters under it from those above.(3) But this, as we
have seen, has no parallel in the early Sumerian conception until it was
combined with the Dragon combat in the form in which we find it in the
Babylonian poem. There the body of Tiamat is divided by Marduk, and from
one half of her he constructs a covering or dome for heaven, that is to
say a "firmament", to keep her upper waters in place. These will suffice
as text passages, since they serve to point out quite clearly the
Semitic source to which all the other detailed points of Hebrew
resemblance may be traced.

(1) See _Seven Tablets_, Vol. I, pp. lxxxi ff., and Skinner,
_Genesis_, pp. 45 ff.

(2) The invariable use of the Hebrew word _tehom_ without
the article, except in two passages in the plural, proves
that it is a proper name (cf. Skinner, op. cit., p. 17); and
its correspondence with _Tiamat_ makes the resemblance of
the versions far more significant than if their parallelism
were confined solely to ideas.

(3) Gen. i. 6-8.

In the case of the Deluge traditions, so conclusive a demonstration is
not possible, since we have no similar criterion to apply. And on one
point, as we saw, the Hebrew Versions preserve an original Sumerian
strand of the narrative that was not woven into the Gilgamesh Epic,
where there is no parallel to the piety of Noah. But from the detailed
description that was given in the second lecture, it