Jena: Hilprecht/ Delitzsch/Schrader/Pan-Babylonian

[us4-he2-gal2]

Thread Orientation: This thread in an open ended exploration of three important figure's in Gemeran Assyriology, Schrader his student Delitzsch and his student Hilpecht. My hope is that after considerable effort, I will have gained and presented here, an outline of early German Assyriology.

Note the Hilprecht collection mentioned below is now housed at the Friedrich Schiller university, city of Jena, Germany.

---

Hilprecht, Nippur and Jena

As a German Scholar:

Hermann V. Hilprecht, born 1859 in Hohenerxleben, Germany, was an enthusiastic, if sometimes controversial, early Assyriologist. He studied under the esteemed Professor Friedrich Delitzsch who won fame as an Assyriologist but also as a man who taught "the men who developed the young science of Assyriology." Delitzsch first taught at Leipzig, then Breslau, and finally Berlin. [1] (In turn, Delitzsch himself was a student of Eberhard Schrader who is said to have initiated German Assyriology with his efforts in Jena, a city which is therefore sometimes termed the 'origin-place' of German Assyriology [2])
Although Hilprecht received his phd in Assyriology in Leipzeig in 1883, under Delitzsch, he is nonetheless sometimes referred to as an American Assyriologist, probably owing to his move to Pennsylvania in 1886. Its apparent that Hilprechts motivation at this time (which may seem strange to us in retrospect) was to move to Pennsylvania in order to edit the publication "Sunday School Times".. which, if overtly religious by times, would not disagree with the fact that Hilprecht was also a Lutherian minister. [3] He was subsequently hired as a lecturer by the University of Pennsylvania, first as Professor of Egyptology and then as Professor of Assyriology a position he held from 1886-1911. In addition he was made Curator of the Babylonian section of the University Museum (Penn) 1887-1911.


The Expedition:


The University of Pennsylvania would soon embark on what is termed 'the second major expedition on a Sumerian site', and it was the first American expedition to excavate in Mesopotamia. Hilprecht was signed on as co-Assyriologist responsible for examining the cuneiform documents, and this eleven year endeavor would largely define his career. The expedition, termed 'The University of Pennsylvania's Babylonian Expedition', focused on the area of Nippur, that centerpiece of Mesopotamian religion. In four campaigns spanning 1889-90. 1890-91, 1893-96, and 1896-1900, the Penn team (to include Hilprecht) established the basic stratigraphy of the site and recovered tens of thousands of cuneiform documents, many of which ended up in the newly founded University Museum in Philadelphia. [4] Of particularly note here was the discovery of 'tablet hill' a section on the eastern mound which produced the majority of the tablets. The literary significance of these Nippurian tablets for the understanding of Sumerian myth and religion is profound. By way of illustration, in 1944 S.N. Kramer, who had a lot to do with the resurrection of Sumerian mythology, knew of some 3000 Sumerian tablets and fragments containing specifically literary compositions (many others were lexical,or administrative etc). Of those 3000, 900 originated from various sites, while 2100 (!) were Nippurian, and originated from the University of Pennsylvania's Babylonian Expedition. The latter were thus considered the major source for the restoration of Sumerian literature. These 2100 Nippurian tablets are further broken down this way - Over 100 found there way to the University of Jena, Germany; approx 800 to the Museum of the Ancient Orient, Istanbul; and almost 1100 are located at the University Museum in Philadelphia. [5] Elsewhere Kramer comments "and although these remained unintelligible for many a decade after their discovery, Hilprecht, who handled and catalogued many of them, realized their significance for the history of religion and literature."

-Cdli makes available scans of what I take to be Hilprechts field journal from the last dig during the expedition 1896-1900 (German)
courtesy of Manfred Krebernik, Jena, and Peter Damerow, Berlin
cdli.ucla.edu/edu/hilprecht/hilprecht_tagebuch_link/tgb.html

-Hilprechts work "Old Babylonian Inscriptions chiefly from Nippur" volume 1, can be downloaded at:
www.archive.org/details/serababylonianex01univuoft
(Further volumes available by searching "The Babylonian Expedition" at http://www.archive.org)

-A Bibliography of publications dealing with Excavations from Nippur can be found at the 'Nippur Reading Room'
www.fortunecity.com/victorian/stone/319/nbiblio.html


How did those tablets make there way to Jena?


Of the things that can be said about Hilprecht, it must eventually be noted that throughout his career he tended distance people, including his own colleagues. As a professor he was considered brilliant but 'egotistical and abrasive', and its somewhat clear he was disliked by the expedition leaders (if not the entire party). As the years went on, he would strike up considerably controversy by consistently exaggerating his own accomplishments and making academic-misstatements and notably, these were significant enough to earn a public condemnation by his own teacher, Friedrich Delitzsch. As one source says: "Hilprecht was content to leave uncorrected the public’s impression that he had done most of the work in the desert. In fact, he was out there amidst the sandstorms and flies only twice in 11 years, spending most of his time back in Philadelphia, translating and publishing results; in Constantinople, where he curried favor with the Ottoman Sultan (and secured for Penn the gift of many tablets) by lending his expertise to the imperial museum; and at his home in Jena, Germany " [1].
In those days the Ottoman empire held sway over the dig sites, and in 1883 the 'Turkish Law on Antiquities' had taken effect, which claimed for the Istanbul Museum all the antiquities discovered on the territory of the Ottoman Empire. Hilprecht by his services to the Istanbul museum, and favor from the Sultan may have assisted the Penn. Museums acquisition of tablets; yet his personal acceptance of 2500 Nippurian tablets (approx. 100 literary) from the Sultan, and his choice to retain them at his residence in Jena, Germany, was also perceived as professional misconduct. As Kramer relays these and other matters "came to a head in the spring of 1905 when, at Hilprecht's request, the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania impaneled a court of inquiry headed by the provost and vice-provost in order to investigate the charges against him."[6] He was cleared of any wrong doing.. however professional conflicts continued and following additional insults, Hilprecht aged fifty, retired from Penn. University in early 1911. His career after word was not the same.
Following his death in 1925, Hilprechts collections were donated by his wife to the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, where they have been made accessible to the scholar. Befuddled by undersized grants, troublesome exchange rates, and a 18 month quest to obtain a visa from the a Russian consulate in Berlin, Kramer was able to travel to Jena in 1955 where he received the full assistance of the Hilprecht collection curator Inez Bernhardt. In this way during the course of subsequent visits, the literary tablets there were treated and published with Bernhardt in the volumes TMHNF III and TMHNF IV. [7] And of course in 1998, M. Geller examined 23 UrIII Incantations from the Hilprecht collection, with the assistance of curator Manfred Krebernik, these are published in the volume TMH 6.

At this page, a brief history and mission statement about the Collection:
www.uni-jena.de/hilprechtsammlung.html





Notes:

1. About Delitzsch www.ctsfw.edu/library/files/pb/1551 . This document can be referred to for an outline of Delitzsch' impressive career, and fascinating stand against the Old Testament (if this review is considered objective in any case.)
2. www.uni-jena.de/hilprechtsammlung.html
3. www.upenn.edu/gazette/0103/frithsidebar.html
4. The University of Pennsylvania's Babylonian Expedition
5. cdli.ucla.edu/wiki/index.php/Arkeoloji_Müzerleri,_Istanbul,_Turkey
note German - www.johnnewtoncenter.org/babel-lecture.doc.
6. S.N. Kramer, "In the World of Sumer" 1988 (Autobiography)
7. (TMH aka TMHNF) = Texte und Materialien der Frau Professor Hilprecht Collection .

[amarsin]

Man, read Puritans in Babylon and get the full story of Penn's-- and America's-- early history in the study of the Ancient Near East. It's not the best-written book in the world, but it's fun nonetheless.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Lol you know, I probably should. I came across the name of that book in my above attempt to see something about Hilprecht, and now I really want it.

(So your saying that would be easyier than the pain staking process of factoid extraction above? )

[amarsin]

Well, it would lay out some of what happened, and how he had his huge falling out with Penn. It's been awhile since I read it, though, so I forget just HOW detailed it is in terms of what YOU want...

***Admin: Naw thats what I need now. Something to fill out the human side of the tale a little bit.

[us4-he2-gal2]

(With thanks to cdli wiki)

Friedrich Delitzsch

1850-1922

"Until the rediscovery of Mesopotamia in the nine-teenth century, western art and literature used stero-typed images of the ancient Near East, normally episodes familiar from the Bible and classical authors: the Tower of Babel, Belshazzar's Feast, the burning of Babylon. These tended to display a hostile attitude to Mesopotamian civilization, which was regarded as decadent; Babylon itself was used in art and literature as a metaphor for any large corrupt commercial city. The decipherment of ancient Near Eastern scripts and research into ancient languages provided a fresh perspective, but also occasionally stimulated religious and racial controversy and anti-Semitism, most notoriously with a lecture in Berlin in 1902 by Friedrich Delitzsch entitled "Babel und Bibel', in which he attempted to show that Babylon was the origin of many Old Testament stories and practices and indeed of much current religious thinking. Later he denied that the Old Testament was a divinely inspired book and his views became progressively more extreme, paralleling the rise of Nazism in Germany."

from Dictionary of the Ancient Near East - [Page 179] by Piotr Bienkowski, Alan Ralph Millard

A Brief Biographical note

:



Friedrich Delitzsch was born in September 1850 at Erlangen Germany, where his father held a professorship. He was the son of Franz Delitzsch, a famous scholar of Jewish parentage who studied theology, Hebrew, and Rabbinical literature - thereafter Franz converted to Lutheranism, and demonstrated an interest and genius which he applied to the field of Old Testament interpretation. His son, Friedrich, was to have fond recollections of his childhood in Erlangen where he received an Orthodox Lutheran religious eduction; later he referred to his childhood as an "ideale goldene Jugendzeit."[2] which would bring him sunlight even in later years.
Delitzsch in no way failed to match his father in academic zeal; He would move on to higher education at the University of Leipzig, and received his doctorate for work in Sanskrit. Very significantly, he would then study Assyriology under Eberhard Schrader in Jena, from 1873 to 1874. [1] Schrader was the first to to teach Assyrian courses in Germany, and it can hardly be doubted that in amongst this early flourishing of Assyriology, Delitzsch made an inestimable contribution or as its described: "Eberhard Schrader, appropriately called the father of German Assyriology, defended tis principles and applied its results to the elucidation of the Old Testament Scriptures. His careful and critical examination of all that had been accomplished in the past, and his successful repelling of Alfred von Gutschmid's violent attack upon the very foundations of Assyrian deciphering, were the beginning of a great movement which soon led to the establishment of the Leipzig school of Assyriologists under Friedrich Delitzsch, and to the subsequent consolidation of the whole science by him and his pupils." [3] Delitzsch would come to teach many great Assyriologists, and Surburg relays that while British scholars succeeded in deciphering Assyrian-Babylonian and attained basic readings, it was Delitzsch who through his works for students, "helped to develop the new science of Assyriology and placed it upon a sound philological basis." He has therefore been called the real founder of the science of Assyriology. Additionally with his Sumerische Grammatik, Delitzsch would prove himself an early pioneer of Sumerology as well (this despite originally siding with Halévy in the early conclusion that Sumerian was a species of cryptic Semitic writing.) (Budge 1925)

-A Bibliography of his works is available at the German wiki here
-A partially Bibliography is also available at the cdli wiki here
(Works Id note in particular or have heard of):

• Wo lag das Paradies? 1881 (Where lies the Paradise?)
  
• Assyrische Grammatik. 1889
  
• Assyrisches Handwörterbuch. 1894-96 (Reprint 1968) (Assyrian Dictionary or Hand book) *
  
• Babel und Bibel. 1902
  
• Zur Weiterbildung der Religion. 1908 (To further educate on the Religion(?))
  
• Sumerische Grammatik. 1914
  
• Sumerisches Glossar 1914
  
• Die große Täuschung. 1920/21 (The Great Deception)

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Babel und Bibel- A Global Sensation

(Archive.org makes this paper available for free in pdf form or in a wonderfully rendered flipbook form here )

The first lecture in 1902:


The words Babel und Bibel recall many things, but first and foremost, that time in 1902 when Delitzsch, by then an established influential scholar, stood in front of an assembly headed by the German Kaiser, and delivered what he termed "a lecture on the significance of Assyriological research for religion." The lecture, presented at the behest of the Kaiser, was to prove controversial on an international level and would gain a unique notoriety of its own - why?
Arnold and Weisburg [2] writing one hundred years later, take a contextual approach explaining that at that time in western world nationalism ran rampant, the major Europeon powers were vying for colonial acquisitions and for supremacy in every field - at that time, and despite obvious accomplishments in the field of Oriental Philology, Germany lagged behind with Near East Archeology. Delitzsch' invitation to lecture in such prestigious circumstance's then, "almost unprecedented", came shortly after the formation of the German Oriental Society (1898), and the lectures co-incided with that Society's initiative to campaign in Mesopotamia - with the support of the Kaiser.
What was apparent and striking about that first very public lecture was Delitzsch' unflinching willingness to make subservient the prestige of the bible, to that of Babylonian literary precedents, which did not fail to win the attention of the devout and orthodox of the day. Ive made a few brief notes reading through the paper:

on page 44-
In speaking about the discovery of the El-Amarna tablets in Egypt, Delitzsch comments on the wide respect for Babylonian literature and on its importance, adding "Shall we be astonished, therefore, to learn that entire cycles of Biblical stories have been suddenly brought to light from the darkness of the Babylonian treasure-heaps, in much purer and more primitive form than they exist in the Bible itself?"

pg.48
Commenting on the Enuma Elish, Delitzsch states that as Marduk was the city god of Babel, the story would find widespread diffusion in Canaan and he further ventures "the poet and prophets of the Old Testament went so far as to attribute directly to Yahveh the heroic deeds of Marduk, and to extol him as the champion that broke the head of the dragons in the water (Psalms lxxiv.13 et sew.; lxxix. 10), and under whom the helpers of the dragon stooped. (Job ix.13).

pg.55
Delitzsch reaffirms his belief that aspects of Babylonian religious cling to us through the medium of the Bible adding "The elimination from our religious thought of the purely human conceptions derived from these admittedly talented peoples, and the liberations of our thought generally from the shackles of deep rooted prejudices, will in no wise impair true religion and the true religious spirit, as these have been taught us be the prophets and poets of the Old Testament, but most sublimely of all by Jesus".

Pg. 65
Cuneiform inscription from the time of Hammurabi, indications are he's meaning Hammurabi's law code, stated as containing the words "Yahveh is God"

Pg. 70
Delitzsch seems to conclude with a devout/pious tone.



It was the implicit conclusions drawn in his lecture that would generate incredible controversy, these were summed by H. Schwarz as "Since Babylonia's culture is much older than Israel's, he [Delitzsch] contended that everything that is religiously, morally, ad culturally significant in the Old Testament must stem from that older religion." [4] By 1905, the resulting controversy, academic and otherwise, had resulted in the publication of 1,650 articles and 28 pamphlets.
As far as the impetus for it all, in addition to the ancient revelations supplied by a science the orator himself had helped to cement, there are other factors to consider in reflecting unique stand - unique at least in its audacity. On a personal level, indications are that Delitzsch had experienced personal religious disillusionment: "The truth is that it was his university training which was responsible for shaking his faith and which ultimately and which ultimately caused him him to hold an extremely low view of three-fourths of the Bible. His faith was singularly shaken in a course taken at Leipzig dealing with the Book of Deuteronomy. The professor explicited the view that this Mosaic book was not Moses, but actually was a document which came from the time of Josiah, written by a school of writers known as the Deuteronomists in the sixth century B.C. After Delitzsch heard and accepted these views, he exclaimed: "Then Deuteronomy is a falsification!' ". (Surburg). Here might be some hint at the beginning of what would be Delitzsch' total ideological separation from views expressed, for example, by his own father.
On the Professional level, its worth noting that Assyriology had not yet come unto its own and was still viewed as something of an "auxiliary science" alongside Old Testament or classical studies. Delitzsch' claims in effect stated Israel cannot be understood outside of the light of Babylonian civilization, from which it derived. His arguments therefore, would bring new importance to a young field, and in fact would imbue Assyriological findings with a direct relevance to the religiosity of even the 20th century western world. This did not stop reactions of the church and devout public from being definitively predictable however, and the Kaiser would be forced to begin distancing himself from Delitzsch.

The Second lecture/ Later years:

Delitzsch was asked in 1903, the following year, to appear once more before the Kaiser and present a followup on the same topic. Spurred on perhaps by the wave of criticism his first presentation had engendered, he would be ever the more provocative - and this time he would go so far as to say that the Old Testament had 'dubious relevancy for Christianity', that Jesus was a Galilean and not a Semite, and that the Old Testament was 'inferior to the Babylonian tradition'.
In the second lecture can be observed an ideological shift, from Babylon as an interpreter and illustrator (as in lecture one), to an attack on the idea that the Hebrew Bible was still authoritative for modern German Christians. (Arnold and Weisberg). These claims tested the faith of some, or simply enraged others, this time the uproar was enough to inspire the Kaiser to write, not long after , "I can only urgently advise him [Delitzsch] to proceed cautiously, step by step, and at any rate to ventilate his thesis only in theological books and in the circle of his colleagues. Spare us, the layman, and, above all, the Oriental Society, from hearing of them."
Beginning in 1903 and increasingly onward, elements of nationalist and anti-Semitic thinking would become apparent in Delitzsch' comments and conclusions and for that reason he has been observed to have been a "child of his time." [5] An example of this is present in the first lecture is in which the wife of Assurbanipal is "obviously to be thought of as a princess of Aryan blood with blond hair." Later positions suggested to be anti-Semitic would be Delitzsch opinions that the Babylonians were note entirely Semitic but of some Aryan stock, and the eventually arrived at opinion, via his 1920 publication Die Grosse Tauschung, that Jesus was Aryan, amoungst others ideas. Despite his life long insistence that his views were not anti-semitic, Delitzsch assertions are in retrospect considered to have provided additional impetus for socio-ideological clash to come.

The rise of Pan-Babylonism

:



A good outline of Pan-Babylonism is available here, however Ill sum its context and relation to Delitzsch here. First a brief description from the above source:

"Assyriology can be said to begin with the agreement (achieved working independently) between four European scholars (Henry Rawlinson, William Talbot, Edward Hincks, and Jules Oppert) in 1857 on the method for correctly deciphering one particular type of cuneiform script. The early discoveries showed that at the earliest stage of the development of cuneiform writing there was a developed system of mathematics. This and the concept of diffusion of ideas from Mesopotamia (and the concept of star myths) were the basis for Panbabylonism. The Panbabylonism existing in Germany from circa 1904 to 1918 was comprised largely of Assyriologists and cuneiform philologists. Additionally, for much of the 19th-century the study of Assyriology was often valued primarily as a means of illustrating the Bible. This resulted in what Samuel Sandmel has labeled as "parallelomania."

Delitzsch trained three important pan-Babylonists, they were Zimmern, Jensen, and Hugo Winckler the later is to be considered the founder of Pan-Babylonism, a school of thought and interpretation Delitzsch would be inextricably linked to:

"The "Babel-Bibel" controversy broke out in 1902 over two lectures by the German Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch (1850-1922). The lectures by Delitzsch brought Panbabylonism into the public arena. Previously the idea of Panbabylonism had been limited to discussions among academics specializing in Assyriology or Biblical studies. (By 1902 Panbabylonism was well established amongst German assyriologists and bible scholars. It was the German Panbabylonists who asked Delitzsch to present his ideas on such in his 1902 lectures.)"

Finally, this overview of pan-Babylonism is illustrative:

"Delitzsch made public the views of many Assyriologists, who now espoused to a school of thought called 'Pan-Babylonianism'm championed by H. Wicnkler, who argued that all world myth were reflections of Babylonian astralreligion which developed about 3000 BCE. H. Zimmern argued that the story of Christ's passion was nothing but a repetition of the 'myth of Bel-Marduk of Babylon'. P. Jensen argued that the Mesopotamian myths (Gilgamesh in particular) were the foundation for all world folk tales, including the Bible (Jensen 1890; 1906; 1924). Israelite history was simply a series of repetitions of the Gilgamesh story. Even the story of Jesus of Nazareth was simply a retelling of Gilgamesh. In fact the Kaiser himself jumped on the 'Babel bandwagen' and argued that Jesus was a non-Jew who actually opposed the message of the Old Testament. Other German scholars at the turn of the century argued for all cosmology and other items coming from Babylon. Delitzsch himself continued to hold to his views (Delitzsch 1920;1921). The Pan-Babylonians, however, were considered indiscriminate in their hypotheses, and most of their extreme ideas were rejected by both biblical and Assyriological scholars. Pan-Babylonism [however] did leave its mark to some extent on biblical studies [and biblical literature would begin to be considered in light of Mesopotamian literature.]" [6]




Notes:
1. "The influence of the two Delitzschs on Bible and Ancient Near East studies" by Raymond F .Surburg
(Concordia Theological Quaterly, 1983 www.ctsfw.edu/library/files/pb/1551)
2. "A Centennial Review of Friedrich Delitzsch's "Babel und Bibel" Lectures by Bill T. Arnold; David B. Weisberg
(Journal of Biblical literature, 2004)
3. As Delitzsch student Hilprecht puts it in 1903 (Explorations In Bible Land During The 19th Century, p.280)
4. Theology In a Global Context: The Last Two Hundred Years by Hanz Schwarz (referenced electronically).
5. Some interesting discussion here occurred on the old U. of Chicago ANE disucssion board
listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2004-February/012148.html
6. From Mesopotamia and the Bible By Lawson Younger Chavalas, Mark W. Chavalas, K. Lawson Younger (referenced electronically)

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Eberhard Schrader

(Woah - Check the sideburns on that guy!)
(Dudes got some mutten chops goin there!)
(Seriously.)

Born in 1836 in Braunschweig, Eberhard Schrader studied in Göttingen under Heinrich Ewald (an early instructor in Theology and Oriental languages.) Unfortunately, bibliographical information on Schrader that I've been able to access to date is a little sparse, but its apparent that he had first interest in Biblical studies turning also to Assyriology. By 1863 he had become professor of theology at the University of Zürich. Subsequently he occupied chairs at Giessen (1870) and Jena (1873).


Schrader In Jena - As Hilprecht recalled: [1]

"Long after English and French pioneers had established and considerably developed the science of Assyriology, German scholars began to remember their obligations towards a discipline the seed of which was sown in the land of Grotefend, and to occupy themselves seriously with those far-reaching researches which later were to find their strongest representation at their own universities. The first Assyrian courses delivered in Germany were given privately at Jena (1), where Eberhard Schrader, appropriately called the father of German Assyriology, defended its principals and applied its results to the elucidation of the OId Testament Scriptures."

Hilprecht's note 1 reads: "According to direct information received from Professor Schrader, of Berlin, by letter, these courses were given in the summer of 1873, when Friedrich Delitzsch attended his lectures on Genesis at the university, while at the same time he was introduced privately by him to the study of Assyrian."


Schrader as a Scholar: [2]

[Note: Grotefend was a scholar in the early 1800s who pioneered a system of Cuneiform decipherment, charactorized by guesswork which proved occasionally right - He stood by his system despite the advancements of other scholars.]

E. A Budge (pg. 223):
"Though Grotefend continued to publish papers on the cuneiform inscriptions of Persia and Assyria until 1856, it is quite clear that Oriental scholars in Germany had by that time begun to doubt the accuracy of his translations of Assyiran texts, and were inclined to examine with characteristic throughness Rawlinson's system of decipherment and his translations. Among those who had followed carefully the writings of Rawlinson, Hincks, and Oppert was Eberhard Schrader (1836-1908), a native of Brunswick, Professor of Theology at Jena and later of Oriental Languages at Berlin; and we must regard him as the "Father of Assyriology" in Germany. He paper, Die Basis der Entzifferung der Assyrisch-babylonischen Keilschriften gepruft, in Zeitschrift d. Deutsch. Morg. Gesellschaft (Bd. XXIII., 1869, pp. 337-374), proves that he accepted Rawlinson's system. And his transcription, translation and glossary of the Babylonian text of the trilingual inscription of Darius I at Bihistun, printed in Vol. XXVI. of the same work in 1872, make it clear that he had studied the cuneiform inscriptions for several years before he began to publish the results of his labours. In the same year he published a complete translation, with transliteration, of the Assyrian text of the Legend of the Descent of Ishtar into the Underworld (Die Hollenfahrt der Ishter, Giessen, 1874), with a commentary; and this work established his reputation as an Assyriologist. Fox Talbot, Lenormant and George Smith had published translations of part of the text; but Schrader's knowledge of Semitic languages enabled him to give a connected meaning to the whole of it. In 1876 he discussed Halevy's theory that Sumerian was only a species of cryptic writing invented, like other cuneiform languages, by the Semities, and not a language; and his views coincided on the whole with those of Rawlinson (see Zeit, D.M.G, Bd. XXIX, pp. 1-52)0. His work Keilschriften und Geschichtsforschung (Gissen, 1878) enchanced his reputation greatly in Germany; but the book that gave him world-wide fame was his Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (Gissen, 1883). An English translation, made from the second enlarged German edition, by Owen C. Whitehouse, appeared in London in 1885-1888. In this work Schrader displayed a wide knowledge of the history of Western Asia and of the languages spoken there in ancient days; and it won consideration and sympathy for the new science of Assyriology throughout Germany. Of his other works and papers there is no need to make mention here; but he will be ever remembered as the founder of that most useful series, the Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek. He was a fine example of the old type of German scholars; his modesty was as great as his learning, and of his courtesy and kindness to me personally, both in Berlin and London, I have most pleasent recollections."

Schrader a pan-babylonist only in so far as his work was utilized by Winkler and Zimmern:[3]

"The German Orientalist Eberhard Schrader (1836-1908) was the first scholar to publish, in his book Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (1872), a compilation of what he believed were elements in the Old Testament that were borrowed from Babylonian religion. The commentary was arranged by canonical order of the Old Testament books. His commentary moved through each chapter and verse of the Old Testament, stopping at each verse where comparative philology, mythology, geography, or historical examples could shed light. It displayed a wide knowledge of the history of the ancient Near East and also of ancient languages. (The German-language work was subsequently issued in revised form in 1903 by the German Assyriologists Hugo Winckler and Heinrich Zimmern. Needless to say they rewrote it in the interests of Panbabylonism.)"


-Schrader's work, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (English Translation) is available for free download here:
www.archive.org/details/cuneiforminscrip01schruoft



Further reading: Evidently a look at Schraders life is available in J.S. Cooper's
"“Posing the Sumerian Question: Race and Scholarship in the Early
History of Assyriology,” Aula Orientalis 9 (1991) 47-66.






[1]Explorations In Bible Land During The 19th Century By Hermann Vollrat Hilprecht
2 Rise and Progress of Assyriology, 1925, E.A. Budge (Pg.223-4).
[3]http://members.optusnet.com.au/gtosiris/page9e.html

[us4-he2-gal2]

A Late Redemption for Pan-Babylonians

(It should be noted that the above treated scholars, Delitzsch and Schrader, were not explicit pan-Babylonianists, but taught and influenced its founders.)

In his 2001 article "Back to Delitzsch and Jeremias: The Relevance of the Pan-Babylonian School to the Melammu Project", Simo Parpola positions the work of the Pan-Babylonians for re-evaluation and perusal in the modern course of ANE studies, a somewhat unexpected move.

The article in full is available for download here .

The legacy of this school of early German Assyriology is all but none existent due in part to the fact that its tendency to cross cultural analyzation (with high favor to Mesopotamia), has since the 30s been overtaken by the analytical mode of today - that of "conceptual autonomy." Additionally for some, the stigma of alleged racial inclination within of the pan-Babylonian scholarship most likely serves to further Isolate their work.
However, Parpola here takes some pains to redress the tarnished image of this school, and as his 11 page article seems exceptionally well written and thought out, one might wonder if indeed he has succeeded in solidly legitimizing his movement to peruse these nearly forgotten works, and to extend and modernize their ideas in concert with his "Melammu project" - the first *large scale* effort since those early German scholars to study Mesopotamia from an explicitly cross cultural vantage.

General Defense of pan-Babylonian ideas:

Despite that their sources and science are now hopelessly dated, and not all ideas remain intact, Parpola defends the pan-Babylonians central assertions of in the following way ",,,the diffusion model of cultural evolution espoused by Delitzsch and the pan-Babylonians has by no means been proven wrong by later research. On the contrary, the central contention of the pan-Babylonians, names that Mesopotamian ideas, knowledge, and systems of thought were widely diffused throughout the ancient world since earliest times, has by now become a firmly established fact, and can be extensively documented today.".

Defense of Delitzsch and the Babel und Bible lecture[:

Parpola:
"Reading the Babel-Bibel lectures today, it is almost unbelievable that they could have stirred such emotions and opposition as they did in their time. Many of the things presented in them have since then become firmly established parts of Assyriological and even general knowledge. What is more, the facts are presented in the same clear, intelligent and accurate manner that is also so characteristic of Delitzsch's scientific work. Along with established facts, he does present challenging ideas and interpretations that are still fresh and worthpursuing even today. However, he does not press them, but leaves the final judgment about them to future research.
Despite allegations to contrary, it is difficult to find any racism or bitterness in the lectures. The only occurrence of the word "Aryan" there is at the beginning of the first lecture, where Delitzsch discusses a drawing of Assurbaipal's queen made by Billerbeck and remarks: "Wohl moglish, dass diese Gemahlin Saradanapals eine Prinzessin arischen Gebluts ist und blondhaarig zu denken."
But such remarks must be understood within the context of the time, when racial theories were in vogue everywhere, not from the perspective of later times! There is nothing in the lectures even remotely suggesting that Delitzsch wanted to promote the idea of an Aryan Jesus. In the third lecture, he does (rightly) emphasize the (often overlooked) face that the population of Galilee included a strong Babylonian element, but this point was to draw attention to the relevance of the cuneiform evidence for New Testiment studies, not to suggest a new racist interpretation of Christianity."

On the pan-Babylonians themselves:

"The same can be said about the writings of Hugo Winckler, Alfred Jeremias and the other pan-Babylonians. One can disagree with the details of their reconstruction of the Mesopotamian worldview and its supposed spread all over the world, and many parts of the theory are certainly subject to refinement, adjustment and correction in light of evidence that has become available afterwards. But the facts collected by them are on the whole presented accurately and reliably, and have not lost their validity. As far as the reconstruction of Mesopotamian esoteric thought is concerned, my own conclusions, based on a different approach and a different set of data, in many essential points agree with theirs."

The Melammu project is an online effort hosted by the University of Helinski, and can be found here