Chapter XXV: The Views of Life After Death (3)

[1199] See pp. 263, 264. A text IVR. 5, col. i. compares each of the seven spirits to some animal. On the duplicate six demons are placed in the second division and the seventh in the third.

[1200] On the duplicate those two demons do not occur.

[1201] Schell thinks that the face is that of a dog.

[1202] On the Zurghul duplicate the horse is not pictured.

[1203] See p. 529.

[1204] This division is not marked in the duplicate from Zurghul.

[1205] Not occurring on the duplicate.

[1206] Scheil questions whether the divisions have this purpose. While perhaps not much stress is laid by the artist upon this symbolism, its existence can hardly be questioned. Note the five divisions of the universe in Smith's _Miscellaneous Texts_, p. 16. The water certainly represents the Apsu. Allatu rests upon the bark. We do not find among the Babylonians (as Scheil supposes) the view that the dead are conveyed across a sheet of water to the nether world. The dead are buried, and by virtue of this fact enter Aralu, which is in the earth. Egyptian influence is possible, but unlikely.

[1207] IVR. 26, no. 1.

[1208] _I.e._, the nether world.

[1209] IVR. 30, no. 1; obverse 5, 14.

[1210] See Jensen's valuable articles, "The Queen in the Babylonian Hades and her Consort," in the _Sunday School Times_, March 13 and 20, 1897. The text is published, Winckler and Abel, _Der Thontafelfund von El-Amarna,_ iii. 164, 165.

[1211] Written phonetically _e-ri-ish_. The word is entered as a synonym of _sharratum_, 'queen,' VR. 28, no. 2; obverse 31. This phonetic writing furnishes the reading for _Nin_ in Nin-Klgal.

[1212] See pp. 418, 419.

[1213] See p. 428.

[1214] See below, p. 588 _seq._

[1215] See below, p. 590.

[1216] See above, p. 79.

[1217] See pp. 448, 511.

[1218] See Farnell, _The Cults of the Greek States_, ii. 627.

[1219] See the reference in note 3 to p. 519.

[1220] Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidenthums_, pp. 28, 29. That the Syro-Arabian _Allat_ resembles Ishtar rather than Allatu, points again to the original identity of the two goddesses.

[1221] See p. 546 _seq._

[1222] See below, p. 594, note 1, and Jensen's _Kosmologie_, pp. 145, 480, 483, 487.

[1223] _Sunday School Times_, 1897, p. 139.

[1224] See p. 574.

[1225] See Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, i. 240 _seq._ and 274, 275.

[1226] See p. 574.

[1227] See p. 417.

[1228] Cheyne (_Expository Times_, 1897, pp. 423, 424) ingeniously regards _Belili_ as the source of the Hebrew word _Beliyaal_ or _Belial_, which, by a species of popular etymology, is written by the ancient Hebrew scholars as though compounded of two Hebrew words signifying 'without return.' The popular etymology is valuable as confirming the proposition to place Belili in the pantheon of the lower world. From its original meaning, the word became a poetical term in Hebrew for 'worthless,' 'useless,' and the like, _e.g._, in the well-known phrase "Sons of Belial."

[1229] See p. 482.

[1230] See p. 537.

[1231] See above, p. 523.

[1232] IIR. 59; reverse 33-35.

[1233] See above, p. 175.

[1234] IIR. 57, 51a, a star, Nin-azu, is entered as one of the names of the planet Ninib.

[1235] See above, p. 565. The name occurs also in Haupt's _Nimrodepos_, pp. 19, 29.

[1236] _Vorstellungen_, p. 68.

[1237] The name of the goddess is written throughout the story Nin-Kigal; _i.e._, 'queen of the nether world.' Nin-Eresh. See p. 584, note 2.

[1238] Smith, _Miscellaneous Texts_, p. 16.

[1239] Jensen, _Kosmologie_, p. 259, note.

[1240] IVR. 1, col. i. 12; col iii. 8-10.

[1241] _Te'u_. See IVR. 22, 512, and Bartels, _Zeitschrift fuer Assyriologie_, viii. 179-184.

[1242] See above, pp. 183, 560.

[1243] Obverse ll. 33, 37.

[1244] See above, p. 185.

[1245] See p. 186.

[1246] See p. 183.

[1247] See pp. 417, 598.

[1248] Jensen's _Kosmologie_, pp. 483, 484. In the new fragment of the Deluge story discovered by Scheil (referred to above, p. 507, and now published in the _Recueil de Travaux_, xix. no. 3) the word _di-ib-ba-ra_ occurs, and the context shows that it means 'destruction.' In view of this, the question is again opened as to the reading of the name of the god of war and pestilence. The identification of this god with Girra (pp. 528, 588) may belong to a late period.

[1249] See p. 529.

[1250] See pp. 111, 171, 190.

[1251] See chapter v.

[1252] So at Zurghul (or Zerghul) and el-Hibba. See Koldewey in _Zeitschrift fuer Assyriologie_, ii. 403-430.

[1253] See the valuable chapter in Peters' work on _Nippur_, ii. 214-234.

[1254] _Proceedings of the American Oriental Society_, 1896, p. 166. The dead are often conveyed hundreds of miles to be interred in Nejef and Kerbela.

[1255] Peters' _Nippur_, ii. 325, 326.

[1256] See below, p. 597.

[1257] Koldewey, _Zeitschrift fuer Assyriologie_, ii. 406 _seq._

[1258] _Ib._

[1259] _Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana_, chapter xviii.

[1260] Peters' _Nippur_, ii. 234. Other mounds examined by Peters between Warka and Nippur bear out the conclusion.

[1261] De Sarzec, _Decouvertes en Chaldee_, pl. 3.

[1262] On the stele of vultures, the dead are naked.

[1263] Book I, Sec. 195.

[1264] See p. 512.

[1265] Such sacrifices are pictured on the stele of vultures.

[1266] IIIR. 43, col. iv. l. 20; Belser, _Beitraege zur Assyriologie_, ll. 175, 18; Pinches, _Babylonian Texts_, p. 18.

[1267] For this custom see Trumbull, _The Threshold Covenant_, p. 25; Peters' _Nippur_, ii. 202, 203.

[1268] Recently, Scheil has discovered some private dwellings at Abu-Habba, which will be described in his forthcoming volume on his explorations at that place. See also Peters' _Nippur_, ii. 200, 201.

[1269] Peters' _Nippur_, ii. 220.

[1270] See p. 597. The date of the monument is prior to Sargon; _i.e._, earlier than 3800 B.C.

[1271] VR. 61, col. vi. ll. 54, 55.

[1272] Rassam Cylinder, col. iii. l. 40.

[1273] Rassam Cylinder, col. iv. ll. 74-76.

[1274] _Ib._ col. vi. ll. 70-76.

[1275] Rassam Cylinder, col. iii. l. 64. The favorite mutilation was the cutting off of the head. On one of the sculptured slabs from the palace of Ashurbanabal, a pyramid of heads is portrayed. The cutting off of the hands, the lips, the nose, and the male organ, as well as the flaying of the skin, were also practised. (See Sennacherib's account IR. 42, col. vi. ll. 1-6; Rassam Cylinder (Ashurbanabal), ii. 4 and iv. 136.)

[1276] Rassam Cylinder, col. vii. ll. 46-48.

[1277] _ekimmu_. See p. 580.

[1278] See p. 578.

[1279] Heuzey offers another explanation of the scene which is less plausible. (See De Sarzec, _Decouvertes en Chaldee_, p. 98.)

[1280] Hebrew word _Sak_. The other rite of mourning among the Hebrews, the putting of earth on the head (_e.g._, I Sam. iv. 12; II Sam. i. 2 and xv. 32; Neh. ix. 1), is a survival of the method of burial as portrayed in the 'stele of vultures.' The earth was originally placed in a basket on the head and used to cover the dead body.

[1281] The mourning garb mentioned in the Adapa legend (p. 546) is probably a 'torn' garment.

[1282] Hagen, _Cyrus-Texte_ (_Beitraege zur Assyriologie_, ii. 219, 223).

[1283] Inscription B, col. v. ll. 3-5.

[1284] Lane, _Modern Egyptians_, ll. 286.

[1285] See p. 575.

[1286] _Ib._

[1287] See p. 487.

[1288] Hagen, _Cyrus-Texte_, _ib._ and p. 248.

[1289] "The Folk-Song of Israel," _The New World_, ii. 35; also his article "Das Hebraeische Klagelied," _Zeitschrift fuer Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, ii. 1-52.

[1290] In Egypt at present the tambourine is used to accompany the dirges (Lane, _ib._ p. 278).

[1291] Peter's _Nippur_, ii. 173, and elsewhere.

[1292] _Zeitschrift fuer Assyriologie_, ii. 414.

[1293] See above, p. 575.

[1294] Job, x. 21, 22.

[1295] _I.e._, the darkness is so dense that no light can remove it.

[1296] See the references in Schwally, _Das Leben nach dem Tode nach den Vorstellungen des Alten Israels_, pp. 59-68, and Jeremias' _Vorstellungen_, pp. 106-116.

[1297] Job, vii. 10.

[1298] _Refa'im_.

[1299] Chapter ix. 5-10.

[1300] Gen. xlii. 38.

[1301] Incidentally, a proof that the dead were not buried naked.

[1302] _Das Leben nach dem Tode_, etc, p. 67.

[1303] I Sam. ii. Recognized by the critics as an insertion. See Budde, _Die Buecher Richter und Samuel_, p. 197.

[1304] I Kings, xvii. 21, 22.

[1305] Chapter ii. 7.

[1306] Psalms, cxxxix. 8; a very late production.

[1307] Schuerer, _A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ_, vol. II. Division li. pp. 38, 39, 179-181.

[1308] _E.g._, the custom still in vogue among Orthodox Jews of placing the body wrapped in a shroud upon a board, instead of in a coffin.

[1309] Professor Haupt has recently shown (in a paper read before the American Oriental Society, April, 1897, and before the Eleventh International Congress of Orientalists, September, 1897) that such is the meaning of the phrase, Psalms, cxxxvii. 1, which is ordinarily translated 'rivers of Babylon.'

[1310] The Talmud of Babylonia, and not the Talmud of Palestine, became the authoritative work in the Jewish Church.