Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1910-03-31
OLD WHEN ABRAHAM LIVED.

This story was doubtless very old when
il was inscribed on that tablet. The tablet
itself was 200 years old, and had been
shattered and buried when Abraham
emerged from Ur, perhaps Nippur itself.
The marvellous record has remained bur-
led all these long centuries and now emer-
ges to be given to the world in land as
remote from Abraham as if it were on an
other planet.
The fragment from which this tranSla-
ton was made measures 2 ga inches at
its greatest width by 3-S inches at its
greatest length. ltis about Seven-eighths
OF an inch at its greatest thickness. The
side which bears the inscriptions is the
reverse. The diverse had been broken
off. This evidently contained the begin
ming of the deluge. story, as the writer
carried long lines over to the edge OF the
tablet, where they can now be seen on
the fragment. Professor Hilprecht esti-
mates that the complete tablet was about
TX 10 inches. II was probably l-8
inches thick. What the tablet would tell
if it should be restored in its entirety
challenges the imagination.
In his notes on the translation, Prof.
| Hilprecht calls attention TO the curious
confirmation OF the Bible story contained
in the faulty rendering in the English ver-
sion of the Old Testament OF the word
! .'window" for "roof." He also points
out another error in the translation OF the
English Bible, which helps to confirm the
age of the deluge story. He says that the
Hebrew does not warrant the translating
of the command TO take two OF each
species into the ark. The word used in
the Hebrew text means number" not
species. The command is to take two OF
number, or two instead OF a number.
And this is identically what the Nippur
tablet says was the command OF the Lord
God.
Professor Hilprecht discusses at length
the various later Babylonian stories ofthe
deluge, which differs so widely from the
biblical version. He dismisses them one
by one as impossible sources Of the story
in Genesis.
"There remains" he says, "no other
period to be considered when the Oldest
version OF the deluge story could posi-
bly have entered Canaan than the time
when Abraham, whom regard as atruly
historical person, left his home on the
Euphrates and moved westward"
The other tablet which attracted Pro-
fessor Hilprecht's attention brings out a
theory quite as startling to archeologists
as that of the Deluge tablet, though oi
less interest to the public at large. The
second tablet was restored almost in its
entirety from twenty fragments. II was
about eight inches by five and half. II
proved to be the story of the overthrow
of the civilation of Nippur by hill tribes
which called themselves the Gut. These
inhabited a country northwest OF the
plains OF Shinar.
For long time Assyriologists have
been trying to bridge a gap OF several
centuries in the records of the Sumerians
or Shinarites. This gap is now explained
for the hill tribes conquered the Babylon
ian-Sumerians and ruled them for some
time
Professor Hilprecht advances the sug-
gestion that the Gut may have been the
same race which more than 25OO years
later overwhelmed Europe under the
name of the Gotae, or Goths, and who
were the ancestors of the modern Ger
mans and Scandinavians.