Noah, Not Adam, Ate the Apple

Feb. 1920

Delver in Ancient Lore Finds Evidence Older Than the Bible

Apparent History of Human Race Back 14,000 Years Before Christ

Philadelphia, Pa. — What the discoverer claims to be evidence older than the Bible by two or three thousand years, that woman had nothing to do with the downfall of the human race, was produced by the museum of the University of Pennsylvania in the form of a new set of translations by Dr. Stephen Herbert Langdon.

Doctor Langdon is now professor of Assyriology at Oxford University, England. He was for three years curator of the Babylonian section at the university museum, and while there studied and translated thousands of ancient clay tablets from the ruins of Nippur, in ancient Babylonia.

Noah Ate the Apple

The new book is the fourth in a series depicting the religious life of the Sumerians, a mysterious race, the origin of which is unknown, which was finally swallowed up by the later Semitics. According to one of the flood stories in the collection Noah ate the forbidden fruit after he had been saved from the deluge.

This salvation was accomplished, according to the Sumerian version, by a woman deity. There is no mention of any Eve in the story. Clay tablets from which this and other stories are taken are said to be at least one thousand years older than Babylonian tablets.

14,000 Years Before Christ

After the Sumerians had been extinguished in their political power, according to Doctor Langdon, the Babylonians retained the language for ecclesiastical purposes for many centuries, just as Latin is now used in the Roman Catholic church.

The Sumerian records at the university provide an apparent history of mankind back to 14,000 years before Christ, but this is not considered absolutely authentic, because many of the reigns of kings are collateral. The Sumerians believed that the patriarchs, corresponding to those of the Old Testament, ruled before the flood for 360,000 years. According to their story it was 35,000 years after the deluge when Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylonia.