And this leads him to the question as to whether the celebrated cylinder-seal referred to on p. [79] is really intended to be a picture of the circumstance of the fall of man. Delitzsch points out, that the clothed condition of the figures prevents him from recognizing in the tree the tree “of knowledge of good and evil”—perhaps there glimmers through the Biblical account in Gen. ii. and iii. another and older form of the story, in which only one tree, the tree of life, appeared. The words in ii. 9: “and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” seem, as it were, patched on, and the narrator completely forgets this newly-introduced “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” to the extent, that he even, by oversight, makes God allow man, in contradiction to iii. 22, to eat of the Tree of Life (ii. 16). All this seems very plausible, but may it not be, that man, before eating of the tree of knowledge, was permitted to eat of the tree of life, which was denied to him after the Fall? If this be the case, there was probably no forgetfulness on the part of the narrator, and the story hangs excellently together. And here it is to be noted that both the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, were in the midst of the garden (ii. 9), that the woman seems to be aware of the existence of one tree only (iii. 3), and there is no statement that the man knew the nature of the fruit which his wife handed to him (6), though [pg 532] it may be surmised that, with the prohibition with regard to one of them in his mind, he ought to have inquired. The heaviest punishment therefore falls upon the tempter, the woman coming next, and the man having the lightest though even his is sufficiently severe.
In the design on the cylinder Delitzsch sees a male and a female figure, with a serpent, and in this both Hommel and Jensen agree. Delitzsch, moreover, says: “The distinguishing of the one figure by horns, which was, in Babylonia, as in Israel, equally the common symbol of strength and victoriousness, I regard as a very delicate device of the artist to introduce into the two clothed human figures the sex-distinction in an unmistakable manner.” He is of opinion that nothing very decisive can as yet be pronounced concerning the serpent, but one might connect therewith the appearance of Tiamtu, who also, like leviathan in Job iii. 8 and “the old serpent” in the Apocalypse, may be assumed to have been still existing. (Compare p. [32] of the present work, lines 112 and 113.)
He points out that in a list of rivers, etc., there is one called “the river of the Serpent-god destroying[302] the abode of life” (Id-Sir-tindir-duba), which is also a confirmation of the theory that the Babylonians possessed the legend of the serpent-tempter. Noteworthy also is the following text, which he refers to “by the way,” with a slight indication of the contents:—
“... sin, fixing the command.
... of the ordinance, the man of lamentation.
... the maid, has eaten the evil thing—
... Ama-namtagga has done what is evil
The fate of Ama-namtagga is hard[303]—
Her fate is hard, her face is troubled with a tear.
She has sat on a glorious throne,