[7] A striking instance of the way in which this astral conception of the universe, as current at any rate among the later school of Babylonian astrologers, has left its imprint on Hebrew literature may be seen in Is. xxvii., I, an esehatological prophecy of post-exilie date, where the imagery is clearly drawn from Babylonian sources. The "winding" or "crooked serpent" of the passage is the constellation Draco, which winds about the North Pole; Serpens, a little to the north of the ecliptic, is "the fugitive serpent"; while Hydra, the water-snake, dwelling in the southern heaven or heavenly ocean, is "the dragon that is in the sea." The passage was first explained in this way by Burney, "Journ. Theol. Stud.," XI. (1910), pp. 443 ff.
[8] Stucken's "Astralmythen" (1896-1907) appears to have strongly influenced Winckler, whose theory attracted general attention on its exposition in the "Preussische Jahrbücher" in 1901 (Bd. 104, pp. 224 ff.) and in "Himmels- und Weltenbild der Babylonier als Grundlage der Weltanschauung und Mythologie aller Vôlker," in "Der alte Orient," III., 2-3. He elaborated special points in his "Altorientalische Forschungen" (1902-1905); see also Winckler and Jeremias, "Im Kampfe um den alten Orient," Leipzig, 1907-8. For a defence of the astronomical assumptions of the theory, see especially Jeremias, "Das Alter der babylonischen Astronomie" (op. cit., Hft. 3,1908); and cf. Weidner, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1911, Col. 345 ff., and 1913, Nos. I and 2 (Sonderabdruck, 16 pp.); see further, pp. 304, 308.
[9] Winckler's explanation of the passage is cited by Prof. Gilbert Murray in his "Electra of Euripides," p. 91 f., and by Prof. Burrows in his "Discoveries in Crete," p. 133.
[10] LI. 726 ff.
[11] Cf. Murray, op. cit., p. 91.
[12] The hull was actually associated with Adad, the Weather-god, and naturally symbolized the God of Thunder.
[13] Cf. Taylor, "Primitive Culture," II., pp. 143 ff.
[14] It is possible to conjecture circumstances which would have tended to encourage speculation in that direction. The capture and deportation of a god, if followed by the substitution of another figure in its place and the subsequent recovery of the original, would have led to the incorporation of two figures within one shrine. And a king's ambition to rebuild or beautify a temple might have been extended to the image itself, if the latter had suffered damage or decay.
[15] It was not merely as booty, but in order to gain their favour, that Sin-idinnam and his army carried oft certain Elamite goddesses to their own land, conveying them carefully as in their shrines; and on the restoration of the images to Elam the goddesses themselves returned thither (cf. "Letters of Hammurabi," III., pp. 6 ff.). It was in the same spirit that Nebuchadnezzar I. gave sanctuary to the refugee priests from Elam, and introduced their god Rîa into Babylon (see above, [p. 253] f.).