The Ancient Deluge

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 4, 1873

The Ancient Deluge.

CONFIRMATION OF THE BIBLE STORY FROM CHALDAIC SOURCES.

We have received from the accomplished discoverer, Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum, the subjoined most interesting account of the record of the deluge, which, as we announced a day or two ago, he has lately deciphered from the Assyrian monuments:

“The cuneiform inscription which I have recently found and translated, gives a long and full account of the deluge. It contains the version or tradition of this event which existed in the early Chaldean period at the city of Erech (one of the cities of Nimrod), now represented by the ruins of Warks. In this newly discovered inscription the account of the Deluge is put as a narrative into the mouth of Xisuthrus or Noah. He relates the wickedness of the world, the command to build the ark, the filling of it, the Deluge, the resting of the ark on a mountain, the sending out of the birds, and other matters. The narrative has a closer resemblance to the account translated by the Greeks from Berosus, the Chaldean historian, than to the Biblical history, but it does not differ materially from either. The principal differences are as to the duration of the Deluge, the name of the mountain on which the ark rested, the sending out of the birds, etc. The cuneiform account is much longer and fuller than that of Berosus, and has several details omitted both by the Bible and the Chaldean historian. This inscription opens up many questions of which we knew nothing previously, and it is connected with a number of other details of Chaldean history which will be both interesting and important. This is the first time any inscription has been found with an account of an event mentioned in Genesis.”—Sel.