Ancient Accounts of Creation Versus the Bible
Paul R. Bauman, D.D.
O NE OF THE most thrilling chapters in the early history of archaeology is that de scribing the discoveries of Paul Emil Botta and Sir Henry Layard at the long-forgotten sites of Nineveh and Babylon. Unquestionably, the great est achievement of that period was the recovery of a whole library of Assyrian books from the palace of Ashurbanlpal, for these clay tablets, written in a queer-looking, wedge- shaped script, were found to contain ancient Babylonian legends of the Creation and Flood, strongly remi niscent of the accounts recorded in the Book of Genesis.1 For some time after George Adam Smith deciphered these records and published his Chaldean Account of Genesis, the liberal critics, who de nied the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, insisted that the Bibli cal account of Creation had been derived from the Babylonian legend which dates from only the eighth century B. C. But more recently, much older forms of the Creation legend have been discovered. The oldest of these is the Sumerian Epic of Creation and Paradise (the Su merians were the precursors of the Babylonians in Mesopotamia). These additional discoveries pressed the dates for ancient cosmogonies back as far as 3000 B. C., and it became necessary for the critics to revise their views. As a result, it is now generally agreed that the Biblical account of Creation is not derived from the Babylonian, but that both were based upon very ancient rec ords which existed in that part of the world Which both the Bible and archaeology now call the earliest abode of man. More than this, in recent years Professor Yahuda has produced considerable evidence to show that the literary form of the Pentateuch bears a predominant Egyptian coloring.’ This is exactly what we would expect if Moses wrote the Pentateuch in its permanent form, for Moses was “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts 7:22). MARCH, (947
While the records are of too great length to consider here,* some com parison of the Babylonian and Bibli cal accounts may prove Interesting, and such a comparison will readily show that originally some relation between the two certainly must have existed. For instance, the Babylon ian record was written on seven tab lets, and the events narrated upon the tablets correspond generally to the work of the seven days in the Genesis Creation story. It will be seen from the following translation of the Babylonian that they begin similarly: “Time was when above heaven was not named; Below to the earth no name was given.”4 The Babylonian legend next de scribes a primeval chaos consisting of a mass of turbulous waters, then a division of the waters by a firma ment. After this, there follows the creation of the sun, moon, and stars, and eventually there is the story of man’s creation. The Babylonian rec ord ends with the hallowing of the seventh day. In all the above respects, the stories are similar. However, one needs no more than a casual read ing of the two accounts to become immediately impressed by the fact that far more important than the similarities are the differences, and these differences mark the two Cre ation accounts as belonging to wide ly separated and different religious fields. The Babylonian legend is highly mythological and polytheis tic, and it has a tragically degraded conception of deity. In contrast to the exalted monotheism of the Bib lical cosmogony, where God is eter nal, the gods are generated. In con trast to the dignity of the Genesis record, there follows on the part of the gods a story of love and hate, scheming and plotting, and a long series of wars, culminating in the slaughter of the goddess, Tiamat, who is the personification of the primeval chaos. After a terrible bat tle, which well-nigh exhausted the
great god Marduk, he cuts her body into two parts, and from them makes the heavens and the earth. The story reads: “Then the lord rested; he gazed upon her body, The flesh of the monster he divided; he formed a cunning plan. One half of her he established and made a covering of the heavens, He drew a bolt, he established a guard, And not to let her waters come out, he commanded.”* It will be seen that man himself has a bloody origin, for thus the story continues: “Blood will I bind, bone will I fash ion, I will produce a man; ‘man’ is his name; I will create the man ‘man’ ; Verily by the service of the gods he shall give them rest.’’* The Bible, on the other hand, rep resents man as having been created in.God’s own image, and being given the useful occupation of dressing the garden (Gen. 2:15), but not for the purpose of laboring to relieve a tired deity, as in the Babylonian story. In some respects, the Sumerian Epic of Creation, (3000 B. C.), more nearly parallels the account given in the Bible. In this legend, man was fashioned of clay (Gen. 2:7). In the Sumerian legend, like the Baby lonian, he was created for the pur pose of freeing the gods from labor ing for their substance. The story tells how the gods complain about their condition to/ Enki, the water- god, who was also' the Sumerian god of wisdom. Enki, /however, is asleep and fails to hear their supplications. Whereupon his mother, the primeval sea, “the mother who gave birth to all the gods,” brings the tears of the gods before Enki, saying: "O my son, rise frfim thy bed, from thy . . . work what is wise, Fashion servants of the gods, may they produce their . . .” The god Enki then considers the matter, brings forth the host of “good and princely fashioners” and PAGE SEVENTEEN
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