On January 13, 1902, the German scientist Frederik Delitzsch delivered his sensational lecture entitled "Babylon and the Bible" to the German Oriental Society. He stated that most of the text of the book of Genesis was borrowed from Babylonian mythology and revised by unknown Hebrew authors during the Babylonian captivity. It was then that the prevailing opinion that the story of Creation described in Genesis was an adaptation of the Babylonian work of Enum Elish arose in scientific circles.
The epic poem Enum Elish, often mistakenly thought to be the Babylonian creation story, is written on 7 tablets (Figure 1-3 shows 3 tablets) that were part of the library of King Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. Although today almost the entire poem has been collected, Tablet V (Fig. 3) is still only partially preserved, which makes it difficult to interpret and understand the entire text.
Figure: 1. Enuma Elish, Tablet III.
Brief description of history
Apsu, the deity of fresh water, merged with Tiamat, the deity of the salt ocean, and as a result of this "union" many gods were formed, personifying various aspects of nature. However, the noisy gods began to irritate Apsu, and he planned to destroy them, but he himself was killed by the god of wisdom Ea (l.68–69). In turn, Ea created Marduk (Fig. 4). Tiamat, angry at the death of her husband, creates monsters to fight Marduk. Marduk, who was not afraid of Tiamat, gathers the other gods for a feast, where they decide to send him to battle with Tiamat. A great battle begins, in which Marduk wins by killing Tiamat. He slices through Tiamat with his sword and slices her entire body apart. He makes the sky from the upper half, and the earth from the lower half. Chaos gives way to order: the sun, moon, stars are formed; the calendar appears.
Figure: 2. Enuma Elish, Tablet IV.
Finally, Kingu, the commander-in-chief of Tiamat, enters the scene. Marduk speaks to Ea about his desire to create a man who will serve the gods so that they can rest. Marduk turns to the Igigi (heavenly gods) and the Anunnaki (underground gods), and the Igigi replies that since Kingu started the war, he must be punished. Marduk destroys Kingu, takes his blood, mixes it with earth and creates a man. Then the Anunnaki form Babylon and Esagila - the main Babylonian temple. Finally, Tablet VII lists the 50 names of Marduk in ascending order of the greatness of the Babylonian deities:
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It may seem strange to you that someone could draw a parallel between the Creation in Genesis and this brutal and bloody story, unless they deliberately wanted to look for similarities between them. Of course, the whole theme of the confrontation between the gods is absent in Genesis 1 and refers to polytheism. Some critics have looked to the biblical passages of Isaiah 51: 9-10 and Psalm 73:14 to support this idea, but they tell the historical events of the Exodus through images! For example, we see the same thing in our culture: some names of the months are taken from the names of the Roman gods, and the days of the week - from the Scandinavian deities, but no one thinks that we believe in these deities or their mythical stories.
The whole topic of confrontation between gods is absent in Genesis 1 and refers to polytheism.
Study by Enum Elish
First, this work is a political document explaining why Babylon is the most important city in the world with its main deity, Marduk, in contrast to Anu, Ea and all other deities. In fact, the epic is part of the ceremony of the Akitu New Year Festival, which confirmed the reign of the coming year. Genesis 1 has no such purpose, and claims by critics or secular scientists to the contrary are no more than roundabout reasoning.
Figure: 3. Enuma Elish, Tablet V.
Secondly, this epic is more theogony, not cosmogony. He explains the origin of the gods, not the universe. The formation of space is only a small addition to the work. Thus, Tablets I – V tell about the appearance of the gods and their fierce battles, and only a small section at the end of Table IV (Fig. 2) tells about the origin of the universe. The main part of the history of the creation of the world is set forth in Tablet VI, which describes the origin of man and the formation of various temples. By the way, Stephanie Delli argues that the original story did not describe creation at all - that part was added later. Such a theory could explain the incoherence of Enuma Elish as a whole, and help to understand the origins of the creation stories in the ancient world.
Thirdly, in Enuma Elish, the world and man are an emanation (outflow) of the divine essence, i.e. they are made from the stuff of the gods. There is no distinction between the Creator and the creation. Moreover, Marduk is more of a tailor than a true creator. The concept of creation from nothing seemed to be beyond the understanding of the Babylonians.
Fourth, the Enuma Elish says nothing about the days of the week (or any other periods). In this respect, the tablets do not make any sense. It is for this (and many other) reasons that Genesis 1 is a unique ancient text that is unmatched.
Finally, it is important to determine the chronology of "origins literature" in the ancient Near East. KA Kitchen argues that this work belongs to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, and not to later periods in the history of the Near East.
He notes:
And although I do not accept the traditional chronology of the II millennium, otherwise I agree with him: the beginning of the II millennium BC. (possibly earlier, but not later) - this is the period when the Mesopotamian and Jewish literature on the origin appeared.
Ancient Greece: Theogony of Hesiod
This work tells about the origin of the Greek gods and about the reign of Zeus over all other gods and over the entire cosmos. In this story, Uranus and his wife Gaia try to create the gods, but Cronus attacks his father. The blood of Uranus is spilled on the earth and the gods are formed from it. More gods appear when Cronus cuts off his father's reproductive organ and throws it into the sea. A war begins between Kron and Titan, which lasts 10 years. Finally Zeus conquers space. From an alliance with Gaia, he gives birth to children, of which Zeus, in the end, becomes the most important.
The early Christians knew about these myths and fought them as best they could.
The early Christians knew about these myths and fought them as best they could. The main idea of Toygonia, as in Enuma Elish, is the inner conflict between the gods. However, besides the theme of war, we can draw several other parallels between Enuma Elish and Theogony:
- Marduk and Zeus have a lot in common, especially when Zeus becomes the main god of the cosmos.
- Cronus is very similar to Kinga, especially when he fights Uranus and becomes the master of the universe.
- Likewise, a parallel can be drawn between Tiamat of Enum Elish and Gaea, who turned her Titan children against their father.
Scandinavian mythology
There is a myth in Scandinavian mythology that, in addition to describing the features of the cold northern climate, is strikingly similar to the plot of Enum Elish:
At the very beginning there was a huge fountain - Hvergelmir. The water in it eventually froze and turned into ice, but when the ice began to melt, Ymir was born from its drops. He fell deeply asleep, and a son and a daughter were formed from his sweat. Many other gods arose from these gods. One of them is Odin, who became the head of the gods of the ace.
Ymir and his evil sons began to fight with all the gods, but after a fierce battle of the Storm, the first of the asa of the gods eventually won. When Ymir died, the other gods put his body in the mill and grind it. The stones were stained with blood, and the ground flesh turned to earth. Rocks and mountains were formed from his bones, and his icy blood became sea waters.
Finally, after the gods finished creating the earth, they took Ymir's skull and created the heavens. The sun and stars were formed from the southern god Muspellsheim, who shot arrows of fire into the empty sky. Then, to distinguish between the time of day and year, the gods established their order and movement.
In this myth, you can see a number of similarities with Enuma Elish, even more than Hesiod. I will only say about two:
- Tiamat, the goddess of salty ocean waters, gives birth to many other deities, just like Hvergelmir, the fountain is the source and origin of various gods.
- The story of the creation from the dead body of Ymir is very similar to the fate of Gingu from Enum Elish - the similarity is so striking that one could suspect a “literary borrowing” of Babylonian literature. However, this is not worth doing, since, as far as I know, no one seriously thinks about it. Everyone agrees on the uniqueness of Scandinavian mythology. And of course, no one believes Genesis 1 is based on Scandinavian myth.
Conclusion
This survey of ancient mythology is not just intended as a lesson in cultural anthropology - we wanted to show something that cannot be seen by simply comparing Enuma Elish and Genesis. The study of various data helps, in the end, to reveal a clear principle: no matter what culture the pagan polytheistic mythology belongs to, it follows the usual path - education through sexual fusion, conflict between the gods, the continuity of the substance of the gods and the earth, and the superiority of one god over many others.
Figure: 4. Marduk.
Unlike all mythical stories, Genesis 1 begins with the one true God who is eternal and was in the very beginning. In Genesis, the Creator is clearly separated from his creation. Its text is written in a pure and sublime tone - it is not tainted by crude mythology, but proclaims an excellent God. All pagan mythology is, in fact, written in one genre, while Genesis is in a completely different league.
The survey helps to reveal one simple, but common, deception: if the first work is similar to the second, then, therefore, it was borrowed from this second work. Nothing like this! This similarity may have several possible explanations, and only one of them is literary borrowing. However, this deception prevails in comparative mythology and research on religions - researchers are trying to find similarities between Genesis, and Christianity in general, and pagan literature. It's time to stop this unscientific logic!
Finally, the confusion of creation stories with stories of the formation of the gods and the conflicts between them (as Delli argues) has a definite explanation. The recognition of Genesis 1 as a true and factual creation story explains how distorted versions of creation were independently infiltrated into various ancient ethnic groups and then became part of shameful polytheistic myths.
Be that as it may, Genesis remains a pure and flawless story of Creation.
By Murray Adamthwaite