Part I

THE land to which we are led in the exposition of this subject lies thousands of miles away and the time with which we are concerned lies thousands of years behind us. The question may, therefore, properly be asked, what is our interest in the civilization that flourished in the Euphrates Valley as early, at least, as 3500 years before our era, and that spread northwards into the region lying along the banks of the Tigris as early as 2500 B.C., if not earlier. ^[1]

In the case of Babylonia and Assyria, the very remoteness of the theme, of the place, and of the time constitute three reasons why its history, culture, and religion should be of real interest to us, for the past, and more particularly the remote past, exercises an intense fascination upon us a fascination due to the conviction, deep seated within us, that whereas we belong to the present, the past belongs to us. The history of mankind is a continuous series of links, forming, as Herder phrased it, the "golden chain of culture". Each civilization as it arises is the heir of the ages that have gone before, every phase of human culture stands in some connection with the preceding phase.

Our American civilization is an offshoot of European culture to which we have made some contributions. The culture of Western and Northern Europe represents the extension of Roman civilization. Rome owes its intellectual stimulus to Greece, whose heir she became, and Greek culture, as we know, rests on a substratum of Asiatic influence and embodies elements derived from Egypt and Babylonia as well as from Asia Minor ; and even when we pass to the distant East, the chain is not broken. Persia looks, back to India, as Japan to China.

Through Buddhism the connection is established between Chinese and Hindu civilization, and there are good reasons for believing that a direct cultural influence came to China from India at a period even earlier than the introduction of Buddhism, while the evidence, though not yet complete, is increasing which indicates that both the Chinese and Hindu civilizations lie within the sphere of influences emanating from such far older cultural centres as the Valley of the Euphrates and the Valley of the Nile.

In studying the past we are, therefore, in reality studying ourselves, we are concerned with something that is not remote, but on the contrary with something that is quite close to us with flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. It is this direct interest in the past as a part of ourselves that underlies the remarkable activity unfolded in Europe and in our own country in the task of recovering the remains of the past, so long hidden under the soil.

Everywhere in Greece and Italy, in Asia Minor and India, in Palestine and Syria, in Egypt and Babylonia the spade of the explorer has been busy ^[2] revealing the vestiges of ancient civilizations revealing in many cases the entirely forgotten annals of mankind and enabling us to replace dimmed traditions by clearly ascertained facts, to sift legend and myths from actual historical occurrence, to reconstruct, in short, the earlier periods of that endeavor of mankind to rise superior to its surroundings which we call intellectual, social and religious progress.

But apart from the antiquity of Babylonia and Assyria, there are certain circumstances which invest the region of the Euphrates and Tigris with a special kind of interest. Time honored tradition places here not only the beginnings of civilization but also the cradle of the human race.

The Garden of Eden is a section of Babylonia, as is sufficiently attested by the express mention of the Tigris and Euphrates as two of the rivers which flowed through the primeval habitation of mankind ; and though the story of Adam and Eve is devoid of any historical value, yet the tradition which assigns the first human pair to Babylonia is of great significance for the prominence which Babylonia must have acquired in the minds of the Hebrews, whose religious traditions are thus indissolubly bound up with Babylonia. Again, even when driven out of the mythical paradise, man does not leave Babylonia.

The Valley of Shinar in which all of mankind is represented as being settled at the time of the building of the great tower that should reach to heaven, is merely a designation for the southern portion of the Euphrates Valley, ^[3] while the tower itself was suggested by the zikkurats or stage towers, which were a characteristic feature of the religious architecture of Babylonia. ^[4]

In this story, or rather in the two stories intertwined in the llth chapter of Genesis, one the building of the city which is given the name of Babylon, and the other the building of the tower ^[5] the significant feature is the tradition which thus ascribed to the Euphrates Valley the distinction of once harboring all mankind in addition to being the cradle of the human race. Where the cradle of the human race stood is still a problem of Ethnology in our days, and is perhaps incapable of solution by scientific methods, but the fact that even to the ancient Hebrews, the region of the Euphrates and Tigris appeared as the one which had been settled from time immemorial favors the hypothesis for which we have other evidence, albeit not conclusive, that a high order of civilization first developed in that region. Its only possible rival is Egypt, and the indications at present are that while the actual beginnings of Egyptian civilization may lie further back than the Euphratean culture, yet Babylonia takes precedence in the unfolding of an advanced form of cultural achievements.

Leaving this question aside for the present and returning to Biblical traditions, it is also of moment to note that the Hebrews traced their wanderings prior to their entrance into Palestine to Babylonia, for Ur of the Chaldees, whence Terah the father of Abram sets out, is a well known city in Babylonia, and Harran where he sojourned is another city farther to the north. There is no reason to question the correctness of the tradition which traces the Hebrews, or at least one of the groups that afterwards formed the combination known by this designation, back to Babylonia.

As a matter of fact we come across traces of the Euphratean civilization at almost every period of Hebrew history. We encounter it in the language of the Hebrews, in the codes that grew up among them, in their art and architecture, in their social life, in their political organization, and to a very considerable extent in their religious rites and earlier beliefs. ^[6] The Old Testament is fairly saturated with Babylonian culture, and even when we reach the time and days of the New Testament we have not yet passed beyond the sphere of Babylonian influence.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

See the accompanying map. Babylonia is the name given to the southern portion, Assyria to the northern portion. For the oldest period, Sumer and Akkad may be used as designations of the southern and northern sections of the Euphrates Valley, while Chaldea represents an early name for a part of the southern section which, owing to the accidental circumstance that the latest dynasty of Babylonia the so-called neo-Babylonian period (625 to the advent of Cyrus in 539 B.C.) came from Chaldea,led Roman writers to use this term for the whole region, i.e., for Babylonia and Assyria. Mesopotamia, the land "between the rivers", properly applies only to the section included between the Euphrates and Tigris from their junction northwards. It is, therefore, an inaccurate designation for Babylonia and Assyria, since it does not include the Euphrates Valley.

[2]:

See Michaelis, A Century of Archeological Discoveries (Translated by Bettina Kahnweiler, N. Y., 1908).

[3]:

Shinar is identical with Sumer the original force of which appears to have been "the land" par excellence. It came in time to be the specific designation of the southern part of the Valley in contrast to Akkad as the designation of the northern portion. See King, History of Sumer and Akkad, pp. 13-15.

[4]:

See Jastrow, Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, p. 289 seq.

[5]:

See an article by the writer on "The Tower of Babel" in ibe Independent, vol. 57 (1905), pp. 822-826.

[6]:

This subject is fully set forth in the writer's Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions (New York, 1914).