The Chaldean Account of Genesis

Chapter I: The Discovery of the Genesis Legends

Cosmogony of Berosus.—Discovery of Cuneiform Inscriptions.—Historical texts.—Babylonian origin of Assyrian literature.—Mythological tablets.—Discovery of Deluge texts.—Mutilated condition of tablets.—Lecture on Deluge tablets.—“Daily Telegraph” offer.—Expedition to Assyria.—Fragments of Creation tablets.—Solar Myth.—Second journey to Assyria.—Tower of Babel.—Clay records.—List of texts.—Legend of Oannes.—List of early legends and their authors.

It has long been known from the fragments of the Chaldean historian, Berosus, preserved in the works of various later writers, that the Babylonians were acquainted with traditions referring to the Creation, the period before the Flood, the Deluge, and other matters of which we read in the book of Genesis.

Berosus, however, who recorded these events, is stated by Eusebius and Tatian to have been a contemporary of Alexander the Great, and to have lived into the reign of Antiochus Soter. His date lies, therefore, between B.C. 330 and 260. As this was three hundred years after the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, the great antiquity of these traditions could not be proved with certainty, much less their independence of the accounts which we have in Genesis.