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ENUMA ELISH - Babylonian Creation Myth

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Bianca
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« Reply #15 on: November 19, 2007, 09:34:25 am »








The close relation existing between the Babylonian account of the Creation and the narrative in Genesis i, 1-11, 4a has been recognized from the time of the



p. LXXXII

first discovery of the former, 1 and the old and new points of resemblance between them may here be briefly discussed. According to each account the existence of a watery chaos preceded the creation of the universe; and the Hebrew word tehôm, translated "the deep" in Gen. i, 2, is the equivalent of the Babylonian Tiamat, the monster of the deep personifying chaos and confusion. In the details of the Creation there is also a close resemblance between the two accounts. In the Hebrew narrative the first act of creation is that of light (Gen. i, 3-5), and it has been suggested that a parallel possibly existed in the Babylonian account, in that the creation of light may have been the cause of the revolt of Tiamat. From the new fragments of the poem we now know that the rebellion of the forces of disorder, which was incited by Apsû and not Tiamat, was due, not to the creation of light, but to his hatred of the way of the gods which produced order in place of chaos 2 A parallelism may still be found, however; in the original form of the Babylonian myth, according to which the conqueror of the dragon was undoubtedly a solar deity. 3 Moreover, as has been pointed out above, 4 day and night are vaguely conceived in the poem as already in existence at the





p. LXXXIII

time of Apsû's revolt, so that the belief in the existence of light before the creation of the heavenly bodies is a common feature of the Hebrew and the Babylonian account.

The second act of creation in the Hebrew narrative is that of a firmament which divided the waters that were under the firmament from the waters that were above the firmament (Gen. i, 6-8). In the Babylonian poem the body of Tiamat is divided by Marduk, and from one-half of her he formed a covering or dome for heaven, i.e. a firmament, which kept her upper waters in place. Moreover, on the fragment S. 2,013 1 we find mention of a Ti-amat e-Zi-ti and a Ti-amat shap-li-ti, that is, an Upper Tiamat (or Ocean) and a Lower Tiamat (or Ocean), which are the exact equivalents of the waters above and under the firmament. 2



p. LXXXIV

The third and fourth acts of creation, as narrated in Gen. i, 9-13, are those of the earth and of vegetation. Although no portion of the Babylonian poem has yet been recovered which contains the corresponding account, it is probable that these acts of creation were related on the Fifth Tablet of the series. 1 Berossus expressly states that Bel formed the earth out of one half of Omorka's body, and as his summary of the Babylonian Creation story is proved to be correct wherever it can be controlled, it is legitimate to assume that he is correct in this detail also. More- over, in three passages in the Seventh Tablet the creation of the earth by Marduk is referred to: l. 115 reads, "Since he created the heaven and fashioned the firm earth"; 2 the new fragment K. 12,830 (restored from the commentary K. 8,299) states, "He named the four quarters (of the world)"; 3 and another new fragment, K. 13,761 (restored from the commentary K. 4,4061, definitely ascribes to Marduk the title "Creator of the earth." 4 That the creation of vegetation by Marduk was also recorded in the poem may be concluded from the opening lines of the Seventh Tablet, which are inscribed on the new fragment K. 2,854, and (with restorations from the commentary S. II, etc.) ascribe to him the titles "Bestower of





p. LXXXV

planting," "Founder of sowing," " Creator of grain and plants," and add that he "caused the green herb to spring up." 1
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