Cuneiform

“ And yet it is upon this guess that the vast superstructure of cuneiform decipherment has been slowly reared, with its ever-increasing mass of literature in numerous languages, the very existence of some of which had been previously unknown, and with its revelation of a civilized world that had faded out of sight before Greek history began. The ancient East has risen, as it were, from the dead, with its politics and its wars, its law and its trade, its art, its industries and its science. ”

“ Thorndyke chuckled. "Some fool," he replied,
THE INVERTED CUNEIFORM
"has said that 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.' Compared with much knowledge, it may be; but it is a vast deal better than no knowledge. Here is a case in point. I have read with very keen interest the wonderful history of the decipherment of the cuneiform writing, and I happen to recollect one or two of the main facts that seemed to me to be worth remembering. This particular inscription is in the Persian cuneiform, a much more simple and open form of the script than the Babylonian or Assyrian ”

“ As to the cuneiform inscriptions, the various Semitic tongues furnished means of comparison for Assyrian texts, the Persian and "Zend" for old Persic and Median, and certain cuneiform vocabularies were discovered which rendered it possible to understand a third language, the most ancient of them all, which had been utterly unknown even by name. From the time of Christ, perhaps even before it, down to sixty years ago, the languages and monuments of Egypt and Chaldæa had never been looked upon by the eye of intelligence. The mystery of ages is a mystery no more. ”

“ We must look for information to the systematic excavations that are at last being made on the sites of the old Canaanitish towns. Already cuneiform tablets have been found on them, and though these belong to the Egyptian period we may hope that before long others may be discovered of later date. We have still to bridge over the age which elapsed between the final withdrawal of Egyptian domination and the conquest of the country by Philistines and Israelites. When that age begins the script and official language of Canaan are still Babylonian ”

“ The actual contents of the Tell-el-Amarna tablets are of secondary importance to the fact that cuneiform writing was in use in Palestine fifteen hundred years before Christ, and, therefore, that Babylonian myths and legends had, in all probability, circulated freely there centuries before the Book of Genesis took shape. ”

“ Cuneiform writing is essentially composed of thin short lines, placed in juxtaposition or crossing each other in a somewhat clumsy fashion; it has the appearance of numbers of nails scattered about at haphazard, and its angular configuration, and its stiff and spiny appearance, gives the inscriptions a dull and forbidding aspect which no artifice of the engraver can overcome. ”

“ The cuneiform script had its origin in Babylonia and its inventors were a people whom we call the Sumerians. Before the Semitic Babylonians conquered the land it was inhabited by a people of unknown origin variously Origin. classified, by different scholars, with the Ural-altaic or even with the Indo-European family, or as having blood relationship with both. This people is known to us from thousands of cuneiform inscriptions written entirely in their language, though our chief knowledge of them was for a long time derived from Sumerian inscriptions with interlinear translations in Assyrian. ”

“ A very [Pg 330] similar process doubtless led to the invention of the cuneiform system, and there is no need to assume that either Egypt or Babylonia was indebted to the other country for her knowledge of writing.
We obtain a very similar result in the case of other points of resemblance which have been cited to prove a close connection between the early cultures of the two countries. Considerable stress has been laid on a certain similarity, which the Egyptian slate carvings of the dynastic period bear to examples of early Sumerian sculpture and engraving. ”

“ But the people with whose traditions we are ultimately concerned are the Hebrews. In the first series of Schweich Lectures, delivered in the year 1908, the late Canon Driver showed how the literature of Assyria and Babylon had thrown light upon Hebrew traditions concerning the origin and early history of the world. The majority of the cuneiform documents, on which he based his comparison, date from a period no earlier than the seventh century B.C., and yet it was clear that the texts themselves, in some form or other, must have descended from a remote antiquity. ”

“ This important inscription is written in the cuneiform characters, and in three languages, Aryan, Turanian, and Semitic. It is the Rosetta Stone of the cuneiform writings, the key to their treasures having been obtained from its parallel columns. ”

“ He died in London on the 5th of March 1895. His published works include (apart from minor contributions to the publications of learned societies) four volumes of cuneiform inscriptions, published under his direction between 1870 and 1884 by the trustees of the British Museum; The Persian Cuneiform Inscription at Behistun, 1846–51, and Outline of the History of Assyria, 1852, both reprinted from the Asiatic Society’s journals; A Commentary on the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Babylon and Assyria, 1850; Notes on the Early History of Babylonia, 1854; England and Russia in the East, 1875. ”

“ Like the cuneiform tablets, they bear witness to the long-continued influence of Babylonian culture in Canaan on its literary side.
When we turn to theology and law, the same influence is recognizable. The deities of Canaan were to a large extent Babylonian, with Babylonian names. The Babylonian gods Ana, Nebo, Rimmon (Rammân) , Hadad and Dagon meet us in the names [153] of places and persons, and Ashtoreth, who shared with Baal the devotion of the inhabitants of Palestine, is the Babylonian Istar with the suffix of the feminine attached to her name. ”

“ Like the Babylonian words, they are written in cuneiform characters, and since these denote syllables and not mere letters we know exactly how the words were pronounced. It is an advantage which is denied us by the Phoenician alphabet, whether in the inscriptions of Phoenicia or in the pages of the Old Testament, and we can thus obtain a better idea of the pronunciation of the Canaanitish language in the century before the Exodus than we can of the Hebrew language in the age of Hezekiah. ”

“ Some better monumental illustration may some day be found, for it is clear that the Babylonian sacred literature had much to tell of offences against the gods in the primeval age.
The student may naturally ask, Whence did the Israelites (a comparatively young people) obtain the original myth? It is most probable that they obtained it through the mediation either of the Canaanites or of the North Arabians. Babylonian influence, as is now well known, was strongly felt for many centuries in Canaan, and even the cuneiform script was in common use among the high officials of the country. ”

“ On the other hand, apart from the cuneiform tablets the more strictly archæological evidence of Babylonian influence upon Canaan is extraordinarily scanty. Naturally we should discover no traces of “the goodly Babylonish garments” which, as we learn from the Book of Joshua, were imported into the country, the climate of Palestine not being favourable to their preservation; but it is certainly strange that so few seal-cylinders or similar objects have been disinterred, either at Gezer and Lachish in the south, or at Taanach and Megiddo in the north. What makes it the stranger is that Mr. ”

“ New powers had arrived from Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, and the dazzling Oriental sun outshone the stars of Italy's temperate sky. All forms of paganism were simultaneously received and retained while the exclusive monotheism of the Jews kept its adherents, and Christianity strengthened its churches and fortified its orthodoxy, at the same time giving birth to the baffling vagaries of gnosticism. A hundred different currents carried away hesitating and undecided minds, a hundred contrasting sermons made appeals to the conscience of the people. ”

“ On the contrary, I’m a Muslim from Jerusalem, and that is far greater that your Hebron sect. Who then are you?” He began to read the following lines: “You are all Canaanites: Hittites, Jebusites , Girgashites, Hivites, people of Arka, Amorites, Sidonians, Phenicians, those from Zemar, Arvadians, Hamathians, and all others dwelling in Zidon. In the refining process of Islam, you were found lacking and were passed over—now, you are simply sediment. If your faith were pure and noble, then your people would not find it so necessary to keep others away from your places of worship!” ”

“ There is no ruler of a synagogue there, no Samaritan, no presbyter of the Christians, who is not an astrologer, who is not a soothsayer, who is not a gymnast. The patriarch of the Jews himself when he comes to Egypt is forced by one party to worship Serapis, by the other Christ. They have but one God who is no God; him Christians, him Jews, him all races worship alike.’ To the disdainful and sceptical mind of the emperor, who deified his own unhappy minion, Christianity, gnosticism, Judaism, paganism were all forms of one universal charlatanry and sham. ”

“ How, then, can one explain the fact that in spite of all, the Syrian gods imposed themselves upon the Occident and made even the Cæsars accept them? The reason is that the Semitic paganism can no more be judged by certain revolting practices, that perpetuated in the heart of civilization the barbarity and puerilities of an uncultivated society, than the religion of the Nile can be so judged. As in the case of Egypt we must distinguish between the sacerdotal religion and the infinitely varied popular religion that was embodied in local customs. ”

“ But one thing he did learn, which was common to Judaism and Christianity—that there is but one God. The Monotheism of the Hebrews took the stronger hold of him, from its contrast to the worship around him, which had degenerated into gross idolatry. The tribes of Arabia had become as base idolaters as the Canaanites. Even the holy Caaba was filled with idols, and the mission of the prophet—as he regarded it—was to restore the worship of the One Living and True God. ”

“ Religious history has profited more by their deciphering than the history of politics or of civilization. In Syria also, the discovery of Aramaic and Phœnician inscriptions and the excavations made in temples have in a certain measure covered the deficiency of information in the Bible or in the Greek writers on Semitic paganism. Even Asia Minor, that is to say the uplands of Anatolia, is beginning to reveal herself to explorers although almost all the great sanctuaries, Pessinus, the two Comanas, Castabala, are as yet buried underground. ”

“ Then the Jews spoke in Hebrew, saying, "Most holy Father, we Hebrew men beseech your Holiness, in the name of our synagogue, to vouchsafe to us that the Mosaic Law, given on Mount Sinai by the Almighty God to Moses our priest, may be confirmed and approved, as also other eminent popes, the predecessors of your Holiness, have approved and confirmed it". And the pope replied, "We confirm the Law, but we condemn your faith and interpretation thereof, because He who you say is to come, the Lord Jesus Christ, is come already, as our Church teaches and preaches." ”

“ The Fundamental Principle of Islam is an arid Monotheism. Abraham, Moses and Jesus are regarded as God-sent prophets. The miraculous birth of Jesus, by a virgin, is also accepted, and Mary is identified with Miriam the sister of Moses. The ascension of Christ is also received. Mohammed, the last and highest of all the prophets, of whom Moses and Christ prophesied, has restored to its original purity his doctrine, which had been corrupted by Jews and Christians. At the end of the days Christ will come again to conquer Antichrist and give universal sovereignty to Islam. ”

“ Hebrew religious institutions can be understood from the biblical evidence studied in the light of comparative religion; and without going afield to Babylonia, Assyria or Egypt, valuable data are furnished by the cults of Phoenicia, Syria and Arabia, and these in turn can be illustrated from excavation and from modern custom. Every religion has its customary cult and ritual, its recognized times, places and persons for the observance. Worship is simpler at the smaller shrines than at the more famous temples ”

“ The Christian Churches of the East have never been very persevering in their zeal to educate and elevate their adherents on the spiritual side; they have always attached the principal importance to the externalities of worship, confessional formulas, and the condemnation of heretics. A fact specially worthy of note is that Islam was accepted by a majority of the East-Syrian Christians even,—the Nestorians of the lands watered by the Tigris, whose ancestors could not be brought to apostasy by all the fierce persecutions of the Persian kings. ”

“ Here the victorious progress of the Oriental religions shows itself. The Egyptian ritual [64] originally was nothing but a collection of magical practices, properly speaking. The religious community imposed its will upon the gods by means of prayers or even threats. The gods were compelled to obey the officiating priest, if the liturgy was correctly performed, and if the incantations and the magic words were pronounced with the right intonation. The well-informed priest had an almost unlimited power over all supernatural beings on land, in the water, in the air, in heaven and in hell. ”