Copyright © 1972 by
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
COSMOLOGY IN
GENESIS I IN RELATION TO ANCIENT NEAR
EASTERN PARALLELS
GERHARD
F. HASEL
When in 1872 George Smith made known
a Babylonian
version of the flood story,1 which is
part of the famous Gilga-
mesh Epic, and announced three years later a
Babylonian
creation story,2 which was published
the following year in book
form,3 the attention of OT
scholars was assured and a new
era of the study of Gn
was inaugurated. Following the new
trend numerous writers have taken it for granted that
the
opening narratives of Gn
rest squarely on earlier Babylonian
mythological texts and folklore. J.
Skinner speaks, in summing
up his discussion of the naturalization of
Babylonian myths
in
More
specifically he writes ". .. it
seems impossible to doubt
that the cosmogony of Gn I
rests on a conception of the
process of creation fundamentally identical with
that of the
1 The first news of this flood account was
conveyed by Smith in
1872
through the columns of The Times and
a paper read to the
Society
of Biblical Archaeology on Dec. 3, rS7z, which was printed
in the Society's Transactions, IT (1873), 13-'34.
2 In a letter by Smith published in the Daily Telegraph, March 4,
1875.
3 G. Smith, The Chaldean Account of Genesis (
4 John Skinner, Genesis (ICC;
2d ed.; Edinburgh, 1930), p. xi, who
followed H. Gunkel, Genesis (HKAT; Gottingen,
1901), p. I; an
English
translation of the introduction of the commentary is published
as The
Legends of Genesis. The Biblical Saga
and History, Schocken
Book
(New York, 1964). The term “legend” is
the unfortunate transla-
tion of the German term
“Sage” by which Gunkel meant the tradition
of those who are not in the habit of writing,
while “history” is written
tradition. Gunkel did not intend to prejudge the historicity of a
given
narrative by calling it “legend.”
2 GERHARD
F. HASEL
Enuma elish tablets."5 Thus by the turn of the
century and
continuing into the twenties and thirties the idea
of a direct
connection of some kind between the Babylonian and
Hebrew
accounts of creation was taken for granted, with
the general
consensus of critical opinion that the Hebrew creation
story
depended on a Babylonian original.
The
last six decades have witnessed vast increases in
knowledge of the various factors involved in the
matter
of parallels and relationships. W. G. Lambert and
others6
remind us that one can no longer talk glibly about
Babylonian
civilization, because we now know
that it was composed
of three main strands before the end of the third
millennium
B.C. Furthermore, it is no longer scientifically
sound to assume
that all ideas originated in
as H. Winckler's
"pan-Babylonian" theory had claimed under
the support of Friedrich Delitzsch
and others.7 The cultural
situation is extremely complex and diverse. Today
we know
that "a great variety of ideas circulated in
ancient Mesopo-
tamia."8
In the last few decades there has
been a change in the way
in which scholars understand religio-historical
parallels to
Gn 1-3. In the past, scholars have approached the
ancient
Near
Eastern creation accounts in general from the point of
view that there seems to be in man a natural
curiosity that
leads him to inquire intellectually, at some stage,
"How did
5 Skinner, op.
cit., p. 47.
6 W. G. Lambert, "A New Look at the
Babylonian Background
of Genesis,"
Ancient
1968) ; S. N. Kramer, History
Begins at
1959)
7 This theory led to the unfortunate "Bible
versus
troversy in the first decade of
the twentieth century. Cf. Friedrich
Delitzsch, Babel
and Bibel (
Testament im Lichte des alters Orients (Leipzig, 1904; 3d rev.
ed., 1916).
Criticisms
of this approach are given by William L. Wardle,
8 Lambert, op. cit., p. 289.
COSMOLOGY IN GENESIS 1 3
everything begin? How did the vast complex of life
and
nature originate?" In the words of a contemporary
scholar,
man sought "to abstract himself from immersion
in present
experience, and to conceive of the world as having
had a
beginning, and to make a sustained intellectual
effort to
account for it."9
Here the speaking about creator
and creation
in the ancient Near Eastern creation accounts is
understood
to be the result of an intellectual thought
process. Over against
this understanding of the ancient Near Eastern
creation myths
and myths of beginning there are scholars who
believe that in
these myths the existence of mankind in the present
is described
as depending in some way on the story of the
origin of world
and man.10 This means that in the first
instance it is a question
of the concern to secure and ensure that which is,
namely, the
world and man in it. It recognizes that the question
of "how"
man can continue to live and exist has prior
concern over the
intellectual question of the world's
and man's beginning.11
Correspondences and parallels
between the Hebrew creation
account of Gn 1:1-2:412
and the cosmogonies or
9 S. G. F. Brandon, Creation Legends of the Ancient Near East
(Lon-
don, 1963), p. 65.
10 This has been well summarized by R. Pettazoni, "Myths of
Beginning
and Creation-Myths," in Essays on
the History of Religions
(Supplements to Numen;
Genesis (Neukirchen- 'luyn, 1966 If.), pp. 28, 29. N. M. Sarna (Under-
standing Genesis, Schocken Book [
out correctly that the so-called Babylonian Epic of
Creation, Enema
elfish, was annually reenacted at the Babylonian New
Year festival.
However,
the "inextricable tie between myth and ritual, the mimetic
enactment of the cosmogony in the fore: of ritual
drama ... finds
no counterpart in the Israelite cult" (p. 9).
11 Westermann, Genesis, p. 29; B. W. Anderson, Creation versus
Chaos (New York, 1967), pp.
83-89.
12 C Westermann
explained the complementary relationship
between Gen. 1:1-2:4a and 2:4b-2d in the
following way: "In
Genesis
1 the question is, F3-om where does everything originate and
how did it come about? In Genesis 2 the question
is, Why is lean as
he is?" The
Genesis Accounts of Creation (
Thus
the complementary nature of the two creation accounts lies in
the fact that Gn 1 is
more concerned with the entirety of the creation of
the World and Gn 2 more
with the entirety of particular aspects of
4 GERHARD F.
HASEL
and contemporary civilization in the ancient Near
East have
to be approached with an open mind.13
The recognition of
correspondences and parallels raises
the difficult question of
relationship and borrowing as well
as the problem of evaluation.
N.
M. Sarna, who wrote one of the most comprehensive
recent
studies on the relationship between Gn and extra-biblical
sources bearing on it, states: ". .. to ignore subtle differences
[between Genesis and ancient Near Eastern parallels] is to
present an unbalanced and untrue perspective and
to pervert
the scientific method."14 The
importance of difference is, there-
fore, just as crucial as the importance of
similarity. Both must
receive careful and studied attention in order
to avoid a
misreading of elements of one culture in terms of
another,
which produces gross distortion.15
The method employed in this paper is to discuss
the
similarities and differences of
certain terms and motifs in the
Hebrew
creation account of Gn 1 over against similar or
related terms and motifs in ancient Near Eastern
cosmologies
with a view to discovering the relationship and
distinction
between them. This procedure is aimed to reveal
certain
aspects of the nature of the Hebrew creation
account.
Tehom--Tiamat
Since the year 1895 many OT scholars have argued
that
there is a definite relationship between the term tehom (deep)
in Gn 1:2 and Tiamat, the
Babylonian female monster of the
primordial salt-water ocean in Enuma elish.16 Some scholars
creation. Cf. K. A. Kitchen, Ancient Orient and Old Testament (Chicago,
1968),
pp. 31-34.
13 Lambert, op. cit., p. 289, makes this point in reaction to
earlier excesses by scholars who traced almost
every OT idea to
14 Sarna, off. cit., p. xxvii.
15 See Kitchen, off. cit., pp.
87 ff.; Sarna, op.
cit., pp. xxii ff.;
Lambert, op.
cit., pp. 287 ff.
is This identification was made especially by H. Gunkel, Schopfung
and Chaos in Urzeit and Endzeit (
COSMOLOGY IN GENESIS I 5
to the present day claim that there is in Gn 1:2 an "echo of
the old cosmogonic
myth,"17 while others deny it.18
The question of a philological connection
between the
Babylonian
Tiamat and
the Biblical tehom,
"deep," has its
problems. A. Heidel 19
has pointed out that the second radical
of the Hebrew term tehom, i.e., the letter h (h), in corresponding
loan-words from Akkadian
would have to be an x (‘) and that
in addition, the Hebrew term would have to be
feminine
whereas it is masculine.20 If Tiamat had been
taken over into
Hebrew,
it would have been left as it was or it would have
been changed to ti/e'ama (hmxt).21 Heidel has argued
con-
vincingly that both words go back
to a common Semitic root
from which also the Babylonian term tiamtu, tamtu,
meaning
"ocean, sea," is derived. Additional evidence for this
has come
from
sea," has come to light,22 and from
Arabic Tihamatu
or
17 Cf. Anderson, op. cit., p. 39; B. S. Childs, Myth and Reality in
the Old Testament (2d ed. ;
Peake's Commentary on the Bible, ed. by H. H. Rowley and M. Black
(
18 W. Zimmerli,
Die Urgeschichte,
1. Mose I-II
(3d ed. ;
1967),
p. 42; Kitchen, op. cit., pp. 89, 90;
Westermann, Genesis,
p. 149;
K.
Galling, "Der Charakter
der Chaosschilderung in
Gen. i, 2," ZThK,
XLVII
(1950), 151; L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of
the World (
(
der Priesterschrift (2d ed.; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1967), p. 8o, n. 5;
and many others.
19 A Heidel,
The Babylonian Genesis,
1963),
p. 100. Heidel's argumentation has been accepted by Wester-
mann, Genesis, p. 146; Schmidt, op. cit., p. 8o, n. 5; Payne, op.
cit.,
pp. 10, 11; and others.
20 Sarna,
op. cit., p. 22, agrees that tehom is not
feminine by gram-
matical form, but points out
that "it is frequently employed with a
feminine verb or adjective." See also the
discussion by M. K. Wakeman,
"God's
(unpubl. Ph.D.
dissertation,
21 Heidel,
op. cit., p. 100.
22 It is often found parallel to
the Ugaritic ym; cf. G. D.
Young,
Concordance of Ugaritic (
Ugaritic Manual (
the Ugaritic Texts (
6 GERHARD
F. HASEL
Tihama which is the name for
the low-lying Arabian coastal
land.23 On this basis there is
a growing consensus of opinion
that the Biblical term tehom and the Babylonian Tiamat
derive from a common Semitic root.24 This
means that the
use of the word of tehom in Gn
1:2 cannot be used as an
argument for a direct dependence of Gn I on the Babylonian
Enuma elish.25
In contrast to the concept of the personified Tiamat, the
mythical antagonist of the creator-god Marduk, the tehom in
Gn 1:2 lacks any aspect of personification. It is
clearly an
inanimate part of the cosmos, simply a part of the
created
world. The "deep" does not offer any
resistance to God's
creative activity. In view of these observations
it is un-
sustainable to speak of a
"demythologizing" of a mythical
being in Gn 1:2. The term tehom as used in
vs. 2 does not
suggest that there is present in this usage the
remnant of a
latent conflict between a chaos monster and a creator
god.26
The
author of Gn 1 employs this term in a
"depersonalized"27
and "non-mythical"28 way. Over
against the Egyptian
cosmogonic mythology contained in
the Heliopolitan, Mem-
phite, and Hermopolitan theologies, it is of significance that
there is in Gn 1:2 neither
a god rising out of tehom
to proceed
with creation nor does this term express the notion
of a pre-
Bedeutung des Meeres in Agypten,
1962),
p. 52; Wakeman, op.
cit., pp. 158-161.
23 U. Cassuto,
A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (
1961),
p. 23; Heidel, op.
cit., p. 101.
24 Lambert, op. cit., p. 293; Kaiser, op.
cit., p. 115; Kitchen, op.
cit.,
p. 89; Westermann, Genesis, p. 146; P. Reymond, L'eau, sa vie,
et sa signification daps l'Ancien Testament (
n.
z ; Schmidt, op. cit., p. 8o, n. 5 ; D. Kidney, Genesis (London, 1967),
p. 45.
25 With Westermann,
Genesis, p. 146.
26 For a detailed discussion of
the relationship between tehom and
corresponding Sumerian, Babylonian,
and Egyptian notions, see the
writer's forthcoming essay, "The Polemic
Nature of the Genesis
Cosmology," to be published in VT, XXII (1972).
27 Stadelmann,
op. cit., p. 16.
28 Galling, op. cit., p. 151.
COSMOLOGY IN GENESIS I 7
existent, personified Ocean (Nun).29
With T. H. Gaster it is
to be observed that Gn
1:2 "nowhere implies. ..that all
things actually issued out of water."30
In short, the description of the depersonalized,
undifferen-
tiated, unorganized, and
passive state of tehom
in Gn 1:2 is
not due to any influence from non-Israelite
mythology but is
motivated through the Hebrew conception of the
world.31 In
stating the conditions in which this earth
existed before God
commanded that light should spring forth, the
author of Gn 1
rejected explicitly contemporary mythological
notions. He
uses the term teh6m, whose cognates are deeply
mythological
in their usage in ancient Near Eastern creation
speculations,
in such a way that it is not only non-mythical in
content but
antimythical in purpose.
The Separation of Heaven and Earth
The idea of a separation of heaven and earth is
present in
all ancient Near Eastern mythologies. Sumerian
mythology
tells that the "earth had been separated from
heaven"32 by
Enlil, the air-god, while his father An "carried off the heaven."33
Babylonian
mythology in Enuma elish reports
the division of
heaven and earth when the victorious god Marduk forms
29
Nun, the primeval ocean, "came into being by himself," ANET3,
p. 4. For discussions of the distinctions between
Egyptian cosmogonic
speculation and Gen. 1, see H. Brunner, "Die Grenzen von Zeit and
Raum bei den Agyptern," AfO, XVI.I (1954/56), 141-145; E. Hornung,
"Chaotische Bereiche in der geordneten Welt," ZAS,
LXXXI (1956),
28-32;
S. Morenz, Agyptische Religion
(
E.
Wurthwein, "Chaos and Schopfung
im mythischen Denken and
in der biblischen Urgeschichte," in
Wort and Existent (
1970),
pp. 29 ff. ; and supra,
n. 26.
30 T. H. Gaster,
"Cosmogony," Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible
(
31 On the distinction between
the Hebrew world-view and that of
its neighbors, see Galling, op. cit., pp. 154, 155:
Wurthwein, op.
cit.,
p. 36; Stadelmann, op.
cit., pp. 178 ff.
32 N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology (2d ed. ;
cf.
Schmidt, op. cit., p. 21; Stadelmann, op. cit., p.
17.
33 Kramer, History Begins at
8 GERHARD
F. HASEL
heaven from the upper half of the slain Tiamat, the
primeval
salt-water ocean
IV: 138 He split her like a shellfish into two
parts
139
Half of her he set up and ceiled it as sky.34
From
the remaining parts of Tiamat
Marduk makes the earth
and the deep.35 The Hittite Kumarbi myth, a version of a
Hurrian myth, visualizes that heaven and earth
were separated
by a cutting tool:
When heaven and earth were built upon me [Upelluri, an Atlas
figure] I knew nothing of it,
and when they came and cut heaven
and earth asunder with a
copper tool, that also I knew not.36
In
Egyptian mythology Shu, the god of the air, is
referred to
as he who "raised Nut [the sky-goddess] above
him, Geb [the
earth-god]
being at his feet."37 Thus heaven and earth were
separated from an embrace by god Shu (or, in other versions,
Ptah, Sokaris, Osiris, Khnum, and Upuwast of Assiut), 'who
raised heaven aloft to make the sky.38 In
Phoenician mytho-
logy the separation is pictured as splitting the
world egg.39
The similarity between the Biblical account and
mythology
lies in the fact that both describe the creation of
heaven and
earth to be an act of separation.40 The
similarity, however,
does not seem to be as significant as the
differences. In Gn 1
the firmament (or heaven) is raised simply by the
fiat of God.
In
contrast to this, Enuma elish and
Egyptian mythology have
water as the primal generating force, a notion
utterly foreign
to Gn creation.41 In Gn, God wills and
the powerless, inani-
34 ANET3, p.
67.
35 According
too a newly discovered fragment of Tablet V. See
Schmidt,
op. cit., p. 23.
36 O. R. Gurney, The Hittites (2d ed.;
37 Coffin Texts (ed. de Buck),
II, 78a, p. 19, as quoted by
op. cit., p. 28. The date is the Middle Kingdom (2060-1788 B.c.).
38
Morenz, op. cit., pp. 180-182.
39 H. W. Haussig,
ed., Worterbuch der Mythologie (
I, 309, 310.
40 Westermann, Genesis, pp. 47 ff., 160 ff.
41 Sarna, op. cit., p. 13; Stadelmann,
op. cit., p. 16.
COSMOLOGY IN GENESIS I 9
mate, and inert waters obey. Furthermore, there is a
notable
difference with regard to how the
"firmament" was fashioned
and the material employed for that purpose, and how
Marduk
created in Enuma elish. The separation of waters in Gn is
carried out in two steps: (1) There is a
separation of waters
on a horizontal level with waters above and below
the firma-
ment (expanse) (Gn 1:6-8) ; and (2) a separation of waters on
the vertical level, namely the separation of waters
below the
firmament (expanse) in one place (ocean) to let
the dry land
(earth = ground) appear (Gn 1:9, 10).
These notable differences have led T. H. Gaster to suggest
that "the writer [of Gn
1] has suppressed or expurgated older
and cruder mythological fancies."42
But these differences are
not so much due to suppressing or expurgating
mythology.
They
rather indicate a radical break with the mythical
cosmogony. We agree with C. Westermann
that the Biblical
author in explaining the creation of the firmament
(expanse)
"does not reflect in this act of creation the contemporary
world-view, rather he overcomes it."43
Inherent in this
presentation of the separation of
heaven and earth is the
same antimythical emphasis
of the author of Gn 1 which we
have already noted.
Creation by Word
It has been maintained that the concept of the
creation of
the world by means of the spoken word has a wide
ancient
Near
Eastern background.44 It goes beyond the
limits of this
paper to cite every evidence for this idea.
42 T. H. Gaster;
Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old
Testament
(New
York, 1969), p. 6.
43 Westermann,
Genesis, p. 160, against G. von Rad, Old Testament
Theology (
course, completely bound to the cosmological knowledge
of its time."
Zimmerli, op.
cit., p. 53; p. Van Imschoot, Theology of the Old Testament
(New
York, 1965), I, 98: Gn 1 "borrowed from the
ideas of those days
about the physical constitution of the
world,..."
44 See the discussion with literature
by Schmidt, op. cit., pp. 173-
177;
von Rad, Old Testament Theology, I, 143; Westermann, Genesis,
10 GERHARD
F. HASEL
In Enuma elish Marduk was able by word
of mouth to let
a "cloth" vanish and restore it again.45
"A creation of the
world by word, however, is not known in
This
situation is different in
Ptolemy
IV (221-204 B.C.) comes a praise to the god
Thoth : "Everything that
is has come about through his
word."47 In Memphite theology it is
stated that Atum, the
creator-god, was created by the speech of Ptah. The climax
comes in the sentence
Indeed, all the divine order really came into
being through what
the heart thought and the
tongue commanded.48
The
idea of creation by divine word is clearly apparent.49
This
notion appears again. ". .. the Creator [Hike =
magic
itself] commanded, a venerable god, who speaks with
his
mouth... . "50 G. F.
Brandon points out that the notion
of creation by word in Egyptian thought is to be
understood
that "creation was effected by magical
utterance."51 Further-
pp.
52-57; D. J. France, "Creation by the Word" (unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation,
45 ANET3, p. 66: IV:
19-26; Heidel, oohc cit.,
pp. 126 ff.
46 Schmidt, olh. cit., p. 174. Kramer, History
Begins at
8o,
makes the point that the Near Eastern idea of the creative power
of the divine word was a Sumerian development.
"All that the creating
deity had to do ...was to lad- his plans, utter the
word, and pro-
nounce a name" (p. 79).
This he believes was an abstraction of the
power of the command of the king.
47 L. Durr,
Die Wertung des
gcttlichen Wortes im Alten
Testament
und im antiken
Orient
(
48 ANET3, p. s.
49 Detailed discussions of the
Egyptian idea of creation by divine
word in relation to the OT idea of creation by
divine word have been
presented by K. Koch, " Wort
und Einheit des Schopfergottes
in
op. cit., pp. 2 ff. Koch claims that the OT idea of creation by
divine
word is derived from the Memuhite
cosmogony. But a direct dependence
is to be rejected. C f. Westermann,
Genesis, p. 56; Schmidt, o,h. cit.,
p. 177. In
Genesis creation.
50
51 Ibid.,
p. 38.
COSMOLOGY IN GENESIS I 11
more, creation by magical power of the spoken word
is
only one of many ways creation takes place in
Egyptian
mythology.52
N. M. Sarna considers
the similarity between the Egyptian
notion of creation by word and the one in Gn 1 as "wholly
superficial."53 In Egyptian thought
the pronouncement of
the right magical word, like the performance of the
right
magical action, is able to actualize the
potentialities inherent
in matter. The Gn
concept of creation by divine fiat is not
obscured by polytheistic and mantic-magic
distortions.54 Gn 1
passes in absolute silence over the nature of matter
upon which
the divine word acted creatively. The constant
phrase "and
God
said" (Gn 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26) with
the concluding
refrain "and it was so" (Gn 1:7, 9, 11, 15, 24, 30) indicates
that God's creative word does not refer to the
utterance of a
magic word, but to the expression of an effortless,
omnipotent,
unchallengeable word of a God who
transcends the world.
The
author of Gn I thus shows
here again his distance from
mythical thought. The total concept of the
creation by word
in Gn I is unique in the
ancient world. The writer of Gn I
attacks the idea of creation by means of a
magical utterance
with the concept of a God who creates by an
effortless word.55
It
is his way of indicating that Israelite religion is liberated
from the baneful influence of magic. But he also
wishes to
stress the essential difference of created being from
divine
52 E. D. James, "The
Conception of Creation in Cosmology," in
Liber Amicorum. Studies in Honor of C. J. Bleeker (Suppi.
to Nunzen,
XII;
53 Sarna,
op. cit., p. 12.
54 L, Scheffczyk,
Creation and
55 E. Hilgert,
"References to Creation in the Old Testament other
than in Genesis 1 and 2," in The Stature of Christ. Essays in Honor of
E. Heppenstall, ed. by V. Carner and G. Stanhiser (
1970),
pp, 83-87, concludes that in Gn 1 there is a complete
lack of a
primeval dualism, i.e., a cosmic struggle from
which a particular god
emerged victorious. Yahweh is asserted always to
have been the
supreme omnipotent God. This is true also of
other OT creation
passages.
12 GERHARD
F. HASEL
Being,
i.e., in Gn 1 creation by word is to exclude any idea
of
emanationism, pantheism, and
primeval dualism.
The Creation
and Function of the Luminaries
Astral worship was supported in a variety of
forms by the
entire civilization of the ancient Near East,
especially in
Mesopotamia and
the major astral deity was born of Enlil and Ninlil, the air-
god and air-goddess respectively. He was known as Nanna.
Nanna, the moon-god, and his wife Ningal
are the parents of
Utu, the sun-god or the sun.56 In
appearances was the highest deity, so that in the
course of time
many gods acquired sun characteristics. On the other
hand,
the moon had an inferior role. The daily appearance
of the
sun was considered as its birth.57 The
moon waned because
it was the ailing eye of Horus,
the falcon god. It goes without
saying that both sun and moon as deities were
worshiped. In
Hittite
religion the "first goddess of the country" was the
sun-goddess Arinna, who
was also the "chief deity of the
Hittite pantheon."58 In
are not as highly honored as other deities. One
text asks that
sacrifices be made to "the sun, the lady [=
moon], and the
stars."59 The great Baal myth has a
number of references
to the sun-goddess who seeks Baal.60 A
separate hymn
celebrates the marriage of the moon-god Yarih, "the One
Lighting
Up Heaven," with the goddess Nikkal.61
In Enuma elish one could speak of a creation of the moon
only if one understands the expression "caused
to shine"62
as indicating the creation of the moon. It is to
be noted that
56 Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, p. 41.
57 H.
1961),
p. 28.
58 Schmidt, op. cit., p. 117.
59 Text 52 (= SS), 54.
60 Text 62 (= IAB); 49 (=
IIIAB).
61 Text 77 (= NK).
62 ANET3, p. 68.
COSMOLOGY IN GENESIS I 13
the order of the heavenly bodies in Enuma elish is
stars-sun-
moon.63 The stars are
undoubtedly referred to first because
of the astral worship accorded them in
of the great significance of the stars in the
lives of the
astronomically and astrologically
minded Babylonians."64
The
stars are not reported to have been created; the work
of Marduk consists
singularly in founding stations for the
"great gods ... the stars" (Tablet V: 1-2).65
There is likewise
no mention of the creation of the sun.
Against this background the contrast between the
Biblical
and the non-Biblical ideas on sun, moon, and stars
becomes
apparent. "Indeed," says W. H. Schmidt,
"there comes to
expression here [in Gn 1:14-18]
in a number of ways a polemic
against astral religion."66
(1) In the Biblical presentation everything that
is created,
whatever it may be, cannot be more than creature,
i.e.,
creatureliness remains the fundamental
and determining
characteristic of all creation. In Enuma elish Marduk fixes
the astral likenesses of the gods as constellations
(Tablet V:2),
for the gods cannot be separated from the stars and
constella-
tions which represent them.
(2) In the place of an expressly mythical rulership of the
star Jupiter over the other stars of astral deities
in Enuma
elish, we find in Gn the rulership of a limited
part of creation,
namely day and night through the sun and the moon,
both
of which are themselves created objects made by
God.
(3) The heavenly bodies in the Biblical creation
narrative
are not "from eternity" as the Hittite Karatepe texts claim
for the sun-god.67 The heavenly bodies
do have a beginning;
they are created and are neither independent nor
autonomous.
(4) The author of the Biblical creation story in
Gn 1 avoids
63 Not as Heidel, off. cit., p. 117, says, "stars, moon, sun."
64 Ibid.
65 ANET3, p. 68.
66 Schmidt, op. cit., p. 119; cf. Stadelmann, op. cit., p. 17.
67 Schmidt, op. cit., p. iz8.
14 GERHARD
F. HASEL
the names "sun" and "moon,"
which are among
neighbors designations for deities. A conscious
opposition to
ancient Near Eastern astral worship is apparent,
for the
common Semitic word for "sun" was also a
divine name.68
(5) The heavenly bodies appear in Gn 1 in the "degrading"69
status of "luminaries" whose function it is
to "rule." They
have a serving function and are not the light
itself. As carriers
of light they merely are "to give light"
(Gn 1:15-18).
(6) The Biblical narrative hardly mentions the
stars. The
Hebrew
phrase "and the stars" is a seemingly parenthetical
addition to the general emphasis on the greater
and smaller
luminaries. In view of star worship so prevalent in
Mesopo-
tamia,70 it appears that the writer intended to
emphasize that
the stars themselves are created things and nothing
more. An
autonomous divine quality of the stars is thus
denied. They
are neither more nor less than all the other
created things,
i.e.,
they share completely in the creatureliness of
creation
With
von Rad and others we may conclude that "the
entire
passage vs. 14-19 breathes a strongly antimythical pathos"71
or polemic. Living in the world of his day, the
writer of Gn 1
was undoubtedly well acquainted with pagan astral
worship,
as were the readers for whom he wrote. The Hebrew
account
of the creation, function, and limitation of the
luminaries
demonstrates that he did not borrow
his unique thoughts from
68 Stadelmann, op. cit.,
pp. 57 ff.
69 Von Rad,
Genesis, p. 53.
70 E. Dhorme,
Les Religions de Babylonie
et d'Assyrie (
p.
82, presents evidence for the general tendency of
giving divine
attributes to the stars. T. H. Gaster,
Thespis (2d
ed. ;
1961),
pp. 320 ff., links certain characteristics of astral worship with
the seasonal myth of the dying and rising god of
fertility (Tammuz,
Osiris,
Adonis, Attis, etc.).
71 Von Rad, op. cit., p. 53; cf. Schmidt, op. cit.,
p. ii: "Ja, hier
[Gn 1:14 ff.] aussert sick auf mehrf ache
Weise eine Polemik gegen
die Astralreligion."
Payne, op. cit., p.
22; Sarna, off. cit., pp. 9 ff.,
76;
H. Junker, "In Principio Creavit
Deus Coelum Et Terram. Eine
Untersuchung zum
Thema Mythos and Theologie,"
Biblica, 45 (1965),
483;
J. Albertson, "Genesis i and the Babylonian
Creation Myth,"
Thought, XXXVII (1962), 231; Stadelmann, off. cit., p. 17.
COSMOLOGY IN GENESIS I 15
the prevailing pagan mythical views. Rather he
combats them
while, at the same time, he portrays his own picture
of the
creatureliness of the luminaries and
of their limitations.
The Purpose of Man's
Creation
We need to discuss also the matter of the
purpose of man's
creation in Sumero-Akkadian
mythology and in Gn 1. The
recently published Atrahasis
Epic,72 which parallels Gn 1-9
in the sequence of Creation-Rebellion-Man's
Achievements-
Flood,73 is concerned exclusively with the story of
man and
his relationship with the gods.74 It
should be noted, however,
that this oldest Old Babylonian epic75
does not open with
an account of the creation of the world. Rather
its opening
describes the situation when the world had been
divided
among the three major deities of the Sumerian-Akkadian
pantheon. The seven senior-gods (Anunnaki) were making the
junior-gods (Igigi) suffer
with physical work.
I : i : 3-4 The toil of the gods
was great,
The work was heavy, the distress was much--76
The
work was indeed so much for the junior-gods that they
decided to strike and depose their taskmaster, Enlil. When
Enlil learned of this he decided to counsel with his
senior-god
colleagues upon a means to appease the rebel-gods.
Finally,
the senior-gods in council decided to make a
substitute to do
the work:
“Let man carry the toil of the gods."77
72 W. G.
Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-hasis. The Babylonian
Story of the Flood (
73 A very cautiously argued
comparison between the Atrahasis
Epic
and the early chapters of Genesis is presented by A. R. Millard,
"A
New Babylonian `Genesis' Story," Tyndale Bulletin,
XVIII (1967),
3-18.
74 Ibid.,
p. 6. Note now also. the article by W. L. Moran,
"The
Creation
of Man in Atrahasis I 192-248," BASOR, 200 (1970), 48-56,
who deals with the origins and nature of man in Atrahasis.
75 In its present form it dates
to ca. 1635
op. cit., p. 6.
76 Ibid.,
p. 43. 77 Ibid., p. 57.
16 GERHARD
F. HASEL
In
Enuma elish the
gods were also liberated from work by the
creation of man.78 The idea that man
was created for the
purpose of relieving the gods of hard labor by
supplying them
with food and drink was standard among the
Babylonians.79
This
motif may derive from Sumerian prototypes. In the
Sumerian
myth Enki and Ninmah we
also find that man is
created for the purpose of freeing the gods from
laboring for
their sustenance.80
The description of the creation of man in Gn 1:26-28 has
one thing in common with Mesopotamian mythology,
namely,
that in both instances man has been created for a
certain
purpose. Yet this very similarity between Gn 1 and pagan
mythology affords us an excellent example of the
super-
ficiality of parallels if a
single feature is torn from its cultural
and contextual moorings and treated independently.
T. H.
Gaster makes the following significant statement
But when it comes to defining the purpose of
man's creation, he
[the scriptural writer]
makes a supremely significant advance upon
the time-honored pagan
view. In contrast to the doctrine enunciated
in the Mesopotamian myths.
.. , man is here represented, not
as the menial of the gods,
but as the ruler of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms (1:28) ... 81
In
Gn 1 ''man is the pinnacle of creation,'' to use the
words
of N. M. Sarna.82 On the other hand, in
Mesopotamian
mythology the creation of man is almost
incidental, presented
as a kind of afterthought, where he is a menial of
the gods to
provide them with nourishment and to satisfy
their physical
needs. The author of Gn 1
presents an antithetical view. The
very first communication between God and man comes
in the
form of a divine blessing
78 Tablet IV: 107-121,
127; V:147, 148; VI:152, 153; VII 27-29;
ANET3,
pp. 66-70.
79 For other Babylonian texts
which contain this idea, see Heidel,
op. cit., pp. 61-63, 65, 66.
80 Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, pp. 69, 70.
81 Gaster, Interpreter's
Dictionary of the Bible, I, 704.
82 Sarna,
op. cit., p. 14.
COSMOLOGY IN GENESIS I 17
Be fruitful and increase, fill the earth and
subdue it, rule over the
fish in the sea, the birds
of heaven, and every living thing that moves
upon the earth (1:28
This
is followed by the pronouncement that all seed-bearing
plants and fruit trees "shall be yours for
food" (1:29
This
expresses divine care and concern for man's physical
needs and well-being in antithesis to man's purpose
to care
for the needs and well-being of the gods in
Mesopotamian
mythology. In stressing the uniqueness of the
purpose of
man's creation the Biblical writer has subtly and
effectively
succeeded, not just in combatting
pagan mythological
notions, but also in conveying at the same time
the human-
centered orientation of Gn
1 and the sense of man's glory and
freedom to rule the earth for his own needs.
The Order of Creation
There is general agreement that there is a certain cor-
respondence between the order of
creation in Enuma elish and
Gn 1. In Gn
1 the order is light, firmament, seas and dry land
with vegetation, luminaries, animal life in sea and
sky, animal
life on earth, and man. A comparison with Enuma elish indi-
cates certain analogies in
the order of creation: firmament, dry
land, luminaries, and lastly man.83 These
orders of creation
certainly resemble each other in a remarkable way.
But there
are some rather significant differences which have
been too
often overlooked. (1) There is no explicit statement
in Enuma
elish that light was created
before the creation of luminaries.
Although
scholars have in the past maintained that Enuma
elish has the notion of light
before the creation of the heavenly
luminaries, such a view is based on dubious
interpretations
of certain phenomena.84 (2) There is no
explicit reference
83 See the convenient summary of
the order of creation in Heidel,
op. cit., pp. 128, 129, which is, however, not correct on all
points.
84 Against Heidel,
op. cit., pp. 82, 101, 102, 129, 135
and E. A.
Speiser, Genesis, "The Anchor Bible"
(Garden City, N.Y., 1964), p. to.
Schmidt,
op. cit., p. 100, n. 5, points out
correctly that the reference
in Tablet 1:68 concerning the halo which surrounded
Apsu and which
18 GERHARD
F. HASEL
in Enuma elish to the creation of the sun. To infer this from
Marduk's character as a solar deity and from what
is said
about the creation of the moon in Tablet V is too
precarious.85
(3)
Missing also in Enuma elish is the
creation of vegetation,
although Marduk is
known to be the "creator of grains and
herbs."86 Even if the creation of
vegetation were mentioned
in the missing lines of Tablet V, its appearance
would have
been after the luminaries whereas in Gn it is before the
luminaries.87
(4) Finally, Enuma elish knows
nothing of the
creation of any animal life in sea and sky or on
earth.88
A
comparison of creative processes and their order indicates
the following: (1) Gn 1
outlines twice as many processes of
creation as Enuma elish; and (2) there is only a general
analogy
between the order of creation in both accounts;
it is not
identical.89
We can turn only briefly to the question of
dependence.90
Against
the view of earlier scholars, A. Heidel, C. F.
Whitley,
J. Albertson, and others91 seem to be correct in
pointing out
that the general analogy between both stories does
not suggest
a direct borrowing on the part of Gn 1 from Enuma elish. It
is not inconceivable that the general analogy in
the order of
creation, which is far from being identical, may
be accounted
was put on by Marduk, the
solar deity, has nothing to do with the
creation of light as Gn
1:3f. describes it.
85 With C. F. Whitley, "The
Pattern of Creation in Genesis,
Chapter
1," JNES, XVII (1958), 34, and
Albertson, op. cit., p. 231.
86 Tablet VII:2;
ANET3, p. 70.
87 Whitley, op. cit., p. 34.
88 Heidel,
op. cit., pp. 117 f., has given reasons for doubting that
the missing lines of Tablet V could have contained an
account of the
creationn of vegetation, of
animals, birds, reptiles, and fishes. His
doubts have since been justified; see B. Landsberger and J. V. Kinnier
89 Whitley, op. cit., pp. 34, 35, is correct in concluding that "there
is no close parallel in the sequence of the
creation of elements common
to both cosmogonies."
90 For a recent discussion on
the various views with regard to the
question of dependence, see Albertson, op. cit.,
pp. 233-239.
91
Heidel, op. cit.,
pp. 132-139; Whitley, op. cit., p.
38; Albertson,
op. cit., p. 239; Payne, op.
cit., p. 13; etc.
COSMOLOGY IN GENESIS I 19
for on the basis of the assumption that both
stories may have
sprung from a common tradition of remote origin in the
pre-
patriarchal period when the Hebrew ancestors dwelt
in
Mesopotamia.92
As a matter of fact, a comparison of the general
thrust of
Enuma elish and Gn
1 makes the sublime and unique character
of the latter stand out in even bolder relief. The
battle myth
which is a key motif in Enuma elish is completely absent in
Gn 1. J. Hempel seems to
be correct when he points out
that it was the "conscious intent" of the
author of Gn 1 to
destroy the myth's theogony
by his statement that it was
the God of Israel who created heaven and earth.93
Along
the same line W. Eichrodt
sees in the use of the name Elohim
in Gn 1 a tool to assist
against pagan polytheistic theogony.94
gests that the placing of the creation accounts in Gn at the
beginning of a linear history emphasizes a
contrast to the
cyclical nature of mythology, which is especially
significant
in view of the fact that creation in Gn 1 comes to a close
within a certain non-repeatable period of creative
time that
closed with the seventh day. In his view this should
be under-
stood as a polemic which marks off, defends, and
delimits
against such mythical speculations that maintain
a con-
stantly repeating re-enactment
of creation.95 Furthermore,
it should not go unnoticed that the creation of
the tanninim,
"sea monsters," in Gn 1:21
reflects a deliberate effort to
contradict the notion of creation in terms of a
struggle,
which is a key motif in the battle myth of pagan cosmo-
gony. It also puts emphasis
upon the creatureliness of
92 This view has been held in
some form or other by, among others,
Ira
M. Price, The Monuments and the Old Testament (
1925),
pp, 129 f.; Heidel, op. cit., p. 139; Albertson, op.
cit., p. 239.
93 J. Hempel,
"Glaube, Mythos and Geschichte im Alten Testament,"
ZAW,
LXV (i953), 126, 127.
94 W Eichrodt,
Theology of the Old Testament (
I,
186; 187; cf. Sarna, op. cit., pp. 16 ff.; Speiser, op. cit., p. LVI.
95 Wurthwein,
op. cit., p. 35.
20 GERHARD
F. HASEL
the tanninim as being identical to that of other created animals.96
Our examination of crucial terms and motifs in
the cos-
mology of Gn
1 in comparison with ancient Near Eastern
analogues indicates that the author of Gn 1 exhibits in a
number of critical instances a sharply antimythical polemic.
With
a great many safeguards he employs certain terms and
motifs, partly taken from his ideologically
incompatible pre-
decessors and partly chosen in
contrast to comparable concepts
in ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies, and fills
them in his
own usage with new meaning consonant with his aim
and
world-view. Gn cosmology
as presented in Gn 1:1-2:4a
appears thus basically different from the
mythological cos-
mologies of the ancient Near
East. It represents not only a
"complete break"97 with the ancient Near
Eastern mytho-
logical cosmologies but represents a parting of
the spiritual
ways which meant an undermining of the prevailing mytho-
logical cosmologies.98 This was
brought about by the conscious
and deliberate antimythical
polemic that runs as a red thread
through the entire Gn
cosmology. The antimythical polemic
has its roots in the Hebrew understanding of
reality which
is fundamentally opposed to the mythological one.
96 For a detailed discussion,
see the writer's forthcoming essay,
supra, n. 26.
97 So Sarna,
op. cit., pp. 8 ff., who points out
that the Genesis
creation account in its
"non-political," "non-cultic," and "non-
mythological" nature and
function "represents a complete break with
Near Eastern tradition" (p. 9). Independent
of the former, Payne, off.
cit.,
p. 29, maintains that "the biblical account is theologically not
only far different from, but totally opposed to, the
ancient Near
Eastern myths."
98 Childs, op, cit., pp. 39 ff., speaks of the "concept of the world as
present in Genesis z" being in
"conflict with the myth" (p. 39). "The
Priestly
writer has broken the myth ... " (p. 43).
However, he also
claims that the Biblical writer "did not fully
destroy the myth," but
"reshaped" and "assimilated" it in a stage of
"demythologization"
(pp. 42, 43). Later he concludes that
"
myth because of an understanding of reality which
opposed the
mythical" (p. 97). However, myth was
"overcome" already in Gn 1 and
not merely "broken" there.
This material is cited with gracious
permission from:
SDA Theological
Berrien Springs
http://www.andrews.edu/SEM/
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Hildebrandt at: