The fragments of the history of Izdubar, so far as I have at present examined them, remind me of the exploits and labors of Hercules, and, on the supposition that our present version of Berosus is correct as to dates, Izdubar may have been placed about 30,000 years before the Christian era.
Before entering into the details of the tablet, I must first refer to the accounts of the Deluge given in the Bible, and by Berosus, the Chaldean historian, as I shall have to compare these with the Cuneiform record.
The Chaldean account of the Flood, as given by Berosus, I have taken from Cory's Ancient Fragments, pages 26 to 29, as follows:
There are several other accounts of the Flood in the traditions of different ancient nations; these, however, are neither so full nor so precise as the account of Berosus, and their details so far as they are given differ more from the Biblical narrative, so I shall not notice them now, but pass at once to the examination of the text.
In comparing the text of the Deluge Tablet with the accounts in the Bible and Berosus, the first point that meets us is the consideration of the proper names.
The Cuneiform account agrees with the Biblical narrative in making the Deluge a divine punishment for the wickedness of the world; this point is omitted in the Greek accounts of Berosus.
Now, in the account of Berosus, the god who announces the Deluge is stated to be Cronos; so this passage gives us the Cuneiform name of the deity identified by the Greeks with Cronos.
These details have no parallel either in the Bible or Berosus.
The month and day when the Deluge commenced, which are given in the Bible and Berosus, are not mentioned in the text, unless the fifth day, mentioned in a mutilated passage, is part of this date.
The Greek account of Berosus is silent as to the duration of the Deluge.
According to the popular notion this refers to the mountain of Ararat, in Armenia; but these mountains may have been anywhere within the ancient territory of Ararat, and some Commentators looking at the passage in Berosus, where the ark is stated to have rested in the Gordiaean mountains, have inclined to place the mountain referred to in the Kurdish mountains, east of Assyria.
The vessel being stranded on the mountain, the Bible, Berosus, and the inscription all agree that trial was made by birds in order to ascertain if the Flood had subsided; but in the details of these trials there are curious differences in all three narratives.
The account of Berosus mentions the sending out of the birds, but does not mention what kinds were tried.
In the number of the trials it agrees with Berosus, who has three, while Genesis has four.
On the other hand there is no mention of the dove returning with an olive leaf, as in Genesis, and of the birds having their feet stained with Mud, as in Berosus.
In the statement of the building of the altar, and offering sacrifice after leaving the ark, all three accounts agree; but in the subsequent matter there is an important difference between the Bible and the inscription, for while the Bible represents Noah as living for many years after the Flood, the inscription on the other hand agrees with Berosus in making Sisit to be translated like the gods.
Berosus tells us, speaking of the ancient days of Chaldea, "In the first year there appeared, from that part of the Erythræan Sea which borders upon Babylonia, an animal endowed with reason, by name Oannes, whose whole body (according to the account of Apollodorus) was that of a fish; that under the fish's head he had another head, with feet also below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail.
Vishnu became a fish; and after the Deluge, when the waters had subsided, he recovered the holy books from the bottom of the ocean." Berosus, speaking of the time before the Deluge, says: "Oannes wrote concerning the generations of mankind and their civil polity." The Hebrew commentators on Genesis say, "Our rabbins assert that Adam, our father of blessed memory, composed a book of precepts, which were delivered to him by God in Paradise." (Smith's "Sacred Annals," p.
Berosus, in his version of the Chaldean flood, says:
Here the Xisuthros of Berosus becomes Deucalion-Sisythes.
We recognize in it, under an Indian garb, the very tradition of the interment of the sacred writings at Sippara by Khasisatra, such as we have seen it in the fragment of Berosus."
The one most anciently known, and also the shorter, is that which Berosus took from the sacred books of Babylon, and introduced into the history that he wrote for the use of the Greeks.
In the first place, Berosus tells us that the god who gave warning of the coming of the Deluge was Chronos.
Oannes, as described by the Babylonian priest Berosus, had the form of a fish but with the head of a man under his fish’s head and under his fish’s tail the feet of a man.
The shorter, ancient version by Berosus describes how Xisuthros (Khasisatra) was warned by the god Cronos (Ea) of a coming flood and instructed to build a vessel to save his family, friends, and animals.