A Question of Creation Stories

People are talking about creation stories recently.   Christianity Today recently devoted an issue to the question of Adam’s historicity – was he the actual-factual human from which everyone everywhere is descended or is his story more folk-tale or mythical in status… In Kentucky, the group Answers in Genesis is moving forward with a project to build a Genesis theme park complete with dinosaurs and a reconstruction of their own version of Noah’s ark.  And, of course, the whole evolution vs. creation debate continues in its well trodden path.

Creation stories are important.  From them we learn, not just about the historical past (perhaps we can’t learn about the historical past from them at all) but we discover things about the nature of the God who created this world and our relationship to that creator.

But I’d like to diverge from the discussion about the creation account(s) in Genesis for a moment to discuss another creation story - an ancient Babylonian story – the Enuma Elish, whose title is derived from its first two words meaning "When on high…" The story was discovered in modern times during the archaeological digs of Ashurbanipal's palace in Nineveh during the later part of the 19th century.  Assyriologist George Smith first published these texts in 1876 as The Chaldean Genesis.  The Enuma Elish is written in nearly 1,100 cuneiform lines on seven clay tablets which date back to the 7th century B.C. though the story itself is much , much older. 

It is sometimes described as the Babylonian or Mesopotamian creation story, though the creation aspect of the story is really rather incidental to the larger theme of the story which is the glorification of the Babylonian god, Marduk.  When Babylon became the capital of Mesopotamia the patron deity of Babylon – Marduk – was elevated to the level of supreme god, and the Enuma Elish was written to explain how this previously relatively minor god came to seize the power and prominence of older gods.  It tells of his birth, his heroic deeds, his creation of the world, and includes a list of his divine 50 names.

This Babylonian story has a number of significant similarities to the biblical creation story (at least the first of the Biblical Creation stories, the one found in chapter one of Genesis).

(see the table below)

Enuma Elish	Genesis
1. Divine spirit and cosmic matter are coexistent and coeternal	1. Divine Spirit creates cosmic matter and exists independent of it.
2.  Primeval Chaos; Tiamat (salt water goddess)enveloped in darkness	2.  the earth is a chaotic waste with darkness hovering over the waters
3.  Light emanates from the gods	3.  light is created
4.  creation of the firmament	4. creation of the firmament
5. creation of dry land	5. creation of dry land
6.  creation of luminaries	6. creation of luminaries
7.  the gods consult before the creation of humans	7.  "let us create man"
8.  the gods rest and celebrate	8.  God rests and sanctifies the 7th day.

Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, p. 129

In fact – there are so many similarities and points of comparison that some scholars have proposed that the biblical creation story found in Genesis 1:1 – 2:4 was written during the Babylonian exile as a response to the polytheistic Enuma Elish.  Others who want to preserve the uniqueness of the Bible have argued that there are no real parallels between Genesis and the Enuma Elish or that the Genesis story was written first and that the Babylonians borrowed from the biblical account. 

Which way did the influence go?  I don't know for certain.  I have my suspicions, but really I don't know.  But what I have found interesting- even more interesting that the similarities between the two stories - are the differences between the two accounts. The God of the biblical account is very different from the gods of the Enuma Elish; the created worlds are very different, and the relationship between the creation and the God of the bible is very, very, very different from the relationship between creation and the gods of the Enuma Elish. 

Let's start at the beginning…

When on high the heaven had not been named,

Firm ground below had not been called by name,

When primordial Apsu [the god of fresh water], their begetter,

And chaos –Tiamat [the goddess of saltwater], she who bore them all,

Their waters mingled as a single body,

No reed hut had sprung forth, no marshland had appeared,

None of the gods had been brought into being,

And none bore a name, and no destinies determined—

We have a very similar beginning here… of chaotic waters and nothingness.  The Hebrew Scriptures have a very interesting way of describing this chaos:  it is "tohu wo bohu."  Even the sound of those words has a restless, churning kind of rhythm – like that of crashing waves.  (And note how tohu sounds a bit like tiamat.)  But where the biblical creation story has one all-powerful God who is complete and potent within himself  the Babylonian account has two deities - male and female – whose waters mingle (a biological metaphor, surely) in order to bring forth numerous other gods – and we haven't even gotten to the creation stuff yet.

Apsu – [fresh water] and Tiamat [salt waters] come together to bring forth a second generation of gods, and from them a third, and then a fourth (which includes Anu – the god of heaven), and a fifth (which includes Ea – the magician god of the earth). 

Now the birth of all these younger deities offended the senior deity – Apsu.  He was cranky and angry because these offspring were making too much noise, what with all their dancing and partying, laughing and loud rock and roll music. 

"Their ways are truly loathsome to me.

By day I find no relief, nor repose by night.

I will destroy, I will wreck their ways

that quiet may be restored. Let us have rest!"

As soon as Tiamat heard this,

she was furious and called out to her husband.…

"What? Should we destroy that which we have built?

Their ways indeed are most troublesome, but let us attend kindly!"

Doesn't she just sound like mom encouraging dad to relax? 

Now Ea – the god of the earth – was adept at magic, and hearing of his great-great-grandfather's monstrous plan decided to take matters into his own hands in a sort of preemptive attack.  He cast a spell over Apsu and put him into a deep, deep sleep and as he slept, Ea murdered him.  Ea then set himself up as the chief god. He and his wife took over Apsu's home.

It's at this point that Ea and his wife have a son- Marduk, the god of spring symbolized both by the light of the sun and the lightning in storm and rain.  Marduk was the epitome of perfection – perfect arms, perfect legs, perfect eyes and ears – all four eyes and ears!  He was radiant like the sun (his name means "solar calf").  He was tall and strong and handsome. 

But not everything was pleasant and peaceful.  Some of the gods were less than thrilled with Ea's usurpation of power and position – so they began to whisper into the ear of their mother, Tiamat.  They encouraged her to seek revenge for the murder of her husband, Apsu.  And as she listened she decided that she would take up her slain husband's plan. She would kill her children. 

So she created an army of 11 horrifying monsters:

Sharp of tooth, unsparing of fang,

with venom for blood she has filled their bodies.

Roaring dragons she has clothed with terror,

has crowned them with haloes, making them like gods,

whoever beheld them, terror overcame him,

and that, with their bodies reared up, none might turn them back.

She set up the Viper, the Dragon, the Sphinx, and the monster Lahamu,

the Great-Lion, the Mad-Dog, and the Scorpion-Man,

mighty lion-demons, the Dragon-Fly, the Centaur--

bearing weapons that do not spare, fearless in battle.

And from her children she selected Kingu to be her new husband, and the chief of her monster army.  She commissioned him to kill Ea and any of the gods and goddesses who would side with him.

Now all the gods and goddess were fearful of Tiamat's wrath. They retreated at first sight of her fearsome monster army.   They ran away in fear.  They decided to make Marduk their champion. He was, after all the most magnificent among them.    He agreed to fight for them, but only on the condition that if and when he was victorious they would hail him as their chief. 

Marduk then armed himself with a net, and with powerful winds.  The four directional winds – North, East, South, and West, but also 7 other powerful winds: 

He brought forth Imhullu "the Evil Wind," the Whirl-wind, the Hurricane,

the Fourfold Wind, the Sevenfold Wind, the Cyclone, the Matchless Wind;

Thus armed he rode off to battle in his chariot of clouds.  He rode right past the 11 monsters; right up to Tiamat herself and challenged her to one-on-one combat. Tiamat was enraged and she howled like a demon possessed woman.   The fight was on.  Tiamat opened her mouth as if to swallow Marduk whole, but Marduk quickly ensnared her in his net, and then, using his arsenal of winds, he filled her full of winds, till she could not move.  Then he fired an arrow through her belly, which went right through her bowels and into her womb.  Standing over her, he strangled the final life-breath out of her, and with his mace he crushed her skull.

Thus victorious, Marduk split her body – like a giant shell fish.  One half of her he flung into the air to the heavens above; the other half became the earth below.  Her head became a mountain range, and the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flowed from out of her eyes. Her 11 monsters were trapped in his net and placed in the sky as 11 constellations of the zodiac and Kingu, Tiamat's second husband and battle chief, was captured.  All the gods who persuaded Tiamat to seek revenge were rounded up and forced into slavery; forced to build him a permanent home in Babylon.

But upon further reflection he decided that the gods and goddesses who had opposed him were still deities after all, and that they shouldn't be enslaved forever.  He decided that he would create human beings to be slaves to the gods – but to do this he needed blood and bone from which to fashion them.  He approached the assembled deities and asked them who was responsible for Tiamat's wrath and madness. 

Now declare the truth on oath by me!

Who was it that contrived the uprising,

and made Tiamat rebel, and joined battle?

Let him be handed over who contrived the uprising.

His guilt I will make him bear. You shall dwell in peace!"

The … the great gods, replied to him…

"It was Kingu who contrived the uprising,

and made Tiamat rebel, and joined battle."

They bound him, holding him before Ea.

They imposed on him his punishment and severed his blood vessels.

Out of his blood they fashioned mankind.

He imposed on him the service and let free the gods.

So, from the blood of Kingu were men created to be the slaves of the gods – to forever bring them sacrifices of food and drink.  And Marduk and the gods went off to party at his newly constructed home in Babylon.

What a story!  It sounds a lot like some of the Godzilla movies that my son likes so much.

As I said earlier, there are a number of similarities between the Enuma Elish and the Genesis accounts:  we have winds hovering over or pinning down the chaotic waters before being divided to form the sky and the land.  We have the same general outline of created things.  But it's really the differences that I want to explore

First, the Genesis story is a story of an ordered creation.  The chaos of the beginning is forced by the spoken word of God into organized and orderly structures.  The very framework of the story emphasizes this idea with its frequent repetition of the phrases: "And God said 'Let there be…,'"  "And so it was…"  "And God saw that it was good,"  "Evening came and morning came" etc…  The story is also framed in two parts – in the first three days God creates the physical domains of earth and sky and sea.  In the second three days he fills those domains with stars and suns and birds and whales and fish and sea-monsters and cattle and lizards and human beings. 

The Enuma Elish in contrast is anything but organized. The chaos before creation is continued in the lives and struggles of the gods and by extension in the lives of the humans they've created.

 It's not that the God of the bible is rigid and anal-retentive; he's not some legalistic control freak out to stifle everyone's fun.  But rather he has imbued his creation with order because order is a part of his character and because without order there is only chaos and war and death and violence - and who wants to live like that?  In the Babylonian story we see very clearly the ramifications of an un-ordered creation:  perpetual struggle for control and power, infighting and back-biting, and slavery and oppression.

Second, the biblical account gives a very different manner of creation.  The God of the biblical account speaks and there is light and life and fertility and fecundity and beauty.  It is by the power of his spoken creative word that the marvels of the universe come into being.  In stark contrast the Babylonian creation is achieved through death and destruction – through slaughter and war and violence.  And it is this method that I think most of our world has adopted, even many who claim to hold a biblical world view.  Do we have a problem with another country?  Let's attack – break them in half and fling their pieces and parts to the wind. Do we have competition in our business?  Drive the competitors out and create a power monopoly.  Do we want more personal wealth and luxury?  Then create a poor and powerless group to serve us.  Greed is good and power is the measure of everything.  Greatness is determined by strength.

Third, the God of the bible creates the world with worth and dignity.  The earth and sky and sea and all the animals that inhabit them are creatively designed; and declared to be good.  They have intrinsic value and honor because they are created holy and inhabit a holy space.   The earth and all that dwells upon it belongs to God; humans are entrusted as stewards over it.  It belongs to God, not to men for pillage and plunder.  The Babylonian creation, again in contrast, is created in the ashes and wreckage of what came before, and is surely just waiting to be destroyed again in the next outbreak of war between the gods or between men.

Fourth, humans are created by the God of the bible with special place and purpose.  They are created in the image of God.  And note that it's both male and female that are simultaneously created in God's image.  They are equal.   And they are instructed to 'be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, master it.'  Many people  believe the bible to be full of negative "thou shalt not's…" But look at this first commandment given to humans.  It's all positive.  They are given freedom to go! to do well!  to grow! Expand!  Find all the goodness that's been given to you. Explore! Delve! Dive! Learn! Mature!

The Babylonian creation of man is a much sadder affair.  Humans are created from the blood and bone of a slain rebellious god.  With that kind of beginning what can on expect of humans except more of the same… And what is more, humans are a "puppet" creation made explicitly to serve as slaves to the whims of the gods.  And here again, I think it's the Babylonian model that many in our world have adopted.  Businesses 'out-source' jobs to countries where they can get away with paying people pennies a day.  Menial jobs are given to immigrants because we're too good for that kind of work.   The rich and powerful exploit the weak and defenseless.    This is not the example of the biblical creation story.

These creation stories are not 'just' musty old stories. They mean something.  They are not something far-removed in the ancient historical or mythical past.  These creation stories speak about the very conditions of our world today.  What does our creation story say about us?  Do we live and act in a way that matches up to the creation story we claim to believe?  Are our interpersonal relations described by the Biblical story of creation or by the Babylonian?   Do we demonstrate the love for God, for creation, and for each other that is modeled in the biblical creation story?