[Transcriber's Note: This file was produced from images generously madeavailable by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica)at http://gallica.bnf.fr.]
H. B. J.
MY FAITHFUL COLLABORATOR
It requires no profound knowledge to reach the conclusionthat the time has not yet come for an exhaustive treatise on thereligion of Babylonia and Assyria. But even if our knowledgeof this religion were more advanced than it is, the utility of anexhaustive treatment might still be questioned. Exhaustivetreatises are apt to be exhausting to both reader and author;and however exhaustive (or exhausting) such a treatise may be,it cannot be final except in the fond imagination of the writer.For as long as activity prevails in any branch of science, allresults are provisional. Increasing knowledge leads necessarilyto a change of perspective and to a readjustment of views.The chief reason for writing a book is to prepare the way forthe next one on the same subject.
In accordance with the general plan of this Series[1] of Handbooks,it has been my chief aim to gather together in convenientarrangement and readable form what is at presentknown about the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians.The investigations of scholars are scattered through a largevariety of periodicals and monographs. The time has comefor focusing the results reached, for sifting the certain fromthe uncertain, and the uncertain from the false. This work ofgathering the disjecta membra of Assyriological science isessential to future progress. If I have succeeded in my chiefaim, I shall feel amply repaid for the labor involved.
In order that the book may serve as a guide to students, thenames of those to whose researches our present knowledge ofthe subject is due have frequently been introduced, and it willbe found, I trust, that I have been fair to all.[2] At the sametime, I have naturally not hesitated to indicate my dissent fromviews advanced by this or that scholar, and it will also befound, I trust, that in the course of my studies I have advancedthe interpretation of the general theme or of specific facts atvarious points. While, therefore, the book is only in a secondarydegree sent forth as an original contribution, the discussionof mooted points will enhance its value, I hope, for thespecialist, as well as for the general reader and student forwhom, in the first place, the volumes of this series areintended.
The disposition of the subject requires a word of explanation.After the two introductory chapters (common to all thevolumes of the series) I have taken up the pantheon as thenatural means to a survey of the field. The pantheon istreated, on the basis of the historical texts, in four sections:(1) the old Babylonian period, (2) the middle period, or thepantheon in the days of Hammurabi,