Lower part of the obverse of a terra-cotta tablet from Nineveh, inscribed with the names of Babylonian kings in Sumerian and Semitic Babylonian. The 13th line (that running across two columns) has the statement, "These are the kings who were after the Flood. They are not written in their proper order." The names of Sargina (Sargon of Agadé) and Hammurabi (Amraphel) also occur. Found by Sir A. H. Layard and Hormuzd Rassam. CHAPTER III. THE FLOOD. The Biblical account—Its circumstantial nature and its great length—The Babylonian account—The reason of the Flood and why Pir-napištim built the Ark—His devotion to the God Ea—Ea and Jah—Ea’s antagonism to Bêl—The bloodless sacrifice—Ea’s gift of immortality—Further observations—Appendix: The second version of the Flood-story. Noah, son of Lamech, had reached the age of five hundred years, and had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet; and at this time men had begun to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them; then “the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all that they chose.” The question naturally arises, “Who were these sons of God?” According to Job xxxviii. 7, where we have the statement that “The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,” it would seem to be the angels that are intended by these words, and this is apparently the opinion generally held by scholars and divines on the subject. This view seems to be favoured by the Second Epistle of Peter (ii. 1), though, as the words do not actually agree with those of the text of Genesis quoted above, nothing very positive can be maintained concerning the apostle’s dictum—in fact, his words in the passage referred to, “for if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains and darkness, to be reserved unto judgment,” can much more reasonably be regarded as referring, and therefore giving authority to, the story of the fall of the angels, as indicated in Avitus, Caedmon, and Milton, a legend of which the germs are found in the Babylonian account of the Creation, referred to in Chapter I. The other passages of Job where this expression occurs (i. 6, and ii. 2) are not conclusive as to the meaning “angels,” for the expressions “sons of God,” in those passages, who are said to have come before the Almighty, may very well have been merely men. However the matter may stand, for the passages in Job, there is every probability that it is not the angels that are intended in the description we are examining as to the reasons of the coming of the Flood. As the late George Bertin was the first to point out, the Babylonians often used the phrase “a son of his god,” apparently to designate “a just man,” or something similar. The connection in which this expression occurs is as follows—